This year's NME tour is trumpeting the "new rock revolution", a curious concept for a form of music that has been around for 50 years and is currently at its least revolutionary.

However, this limp spin should not disguise the strength of this year's line-up. Oddly, the most impressive act isn't actually the headliners - New Zealand rock monsters the Datsuns are merely the band most have come to see. They were last year's great white hype, their painstaking retro-rock all the rage as 2002 turned into 1972.

The Polyphonic Spree were also much hyped in 2002; thankfully their white-robed, quasi-religious chanting is delivered and received by the Newcastle crowd with too much glee for their time to have passed. The question is where they go next. Perhaps they could change the colour of their robes with shifts in musical direction, and undergo a black-clad, psychedelic, devil-worship period in a couple of years' time.

Much interest surrounds the unknown quantities on the bill. There is enough about the Thrills, stuttering through distortion, crackles and some warm-looking jackets, to suggest a postmodern, urban Byrds. But the shock stars of the night are Interpol. Five white souls in black suits, their hairstyles come courtesy of Kraftwerk and pretty much everything else from Joy Division, with perhaps a smidgen of the Cure, Kitchens of Distinction and the Banshees.

These aren't the most revolutionary influences, but the New York band (who, refreshingly, actually look excited by their own music) twist them into something undeniably thrilling. They play tense, taut, staccato tunes propelled by tinges of vitriol and superb, military percussion. Memorable pop songs are delivered within swathes of paranoia and fear.

Interpol arrive as the nation is consumed by fears of war, and their music is the perfect soundtrack for these uncertain times. If this tour propels them towards the spotlight, it will have done its job.

· At Sheffield University tomorrow. Box office: 0114-222 8777. Then touring.