Bounteously hairy and perma-creased, the Rapture aren't a pretty sight at the best of times, and right now the humidity in the Garage is drenching their saggy T-shirts and teasing their shapeless locks into fuzzy haloes. The dishevelment, which hasn't been helped along by a stylist or major label, lends credence to their claim of having spent their early months sleeping under Brooklyn Bridge in a van. The picture-perfect Strokes would sell their distressed leather jackets for this kind of authenticity.
If the Strokes have refocused attention on New York music, the Rapture, who are allied with the city's electroclash scene, will keep it there for the next 15 minutes - maybe more if they can parlay their reeling disco-punk into a hit single (the best candidate, House of Jealous Lovers, is a fan favourite but probably too sax-squawkingly visceral for Radio 1). Their references are John Lydon's PiL and the Cure, and the resultant mess screams for attention. Literally: frontman Luke Jenner is a racked shrieker who is never happier than when shredding his vocal chords at the canine-pitch end of the scale.
Jenner is a sight and a half, wreathed in lunatic smiles as he screeches "Jealous lovers! Jealous lovers!" (the rest of the lyric just goes "Waaaaugggh!"). Squeezed next to an amp on a stage the size of a postage stamp, he does rapturous bunny hops to the rhythm of Matty Safer's loping basslines. Those closest to the stage are dumbfounded - it is rather like being in the path of a singing intercity express - and the rest of the audience are slamming into each other with glazed expressions.
The Rapture's opposing forces collide most effectively during the first half of the show, when punky Jenner and funky Safer and saxophonist Gabe Andruzzi are at their wildest. The no-wave opener Coming of Spring, the partly acappella Heaven, the atonal Out of the Races, which has Jenner and Andruzzi coming at each other from bleating right angles: the set could have consisted of these three plus Jealous Lovers and people would have gone home happy.
But they carry on for another five numbers, Jenner gaspingly keeping up his end as Andruzzi and the rhythm section grind out their discordant Philadelphia soul. When they finally stagger to a halt, the walls are running with condensation and the audience files out silently, converts to a man.
