To hear the gothy gushings of the current intake of New York art-rockers, you'd think the decade that inspires them, the 80s, began and ended with Joy Division and the Cure. Like Interpol and the Rapture, the Brooklyn-based Stellastarr* (omit the asterisk at your peril, apparently) are indebted to these bands. Listening to leader Shawn Christensen lowing "Things turned grey/Bedroom, cannot breathe/Pushing through hell" on A Million Reasons, it's easy to picture Ian Curtis dashing off something similar, though Christensen hasn't got the excuse of Manchester weather.

But the final show of their latest UK tour revealed that, on stage anyway, they also have an affinity with the sunny uplands of their favourite decade. There were New Romantic kilts, figuratively speaking, under their black utility wear, and it was easy to picture them flapping their lank fringes to Kajagoogoo. All right, they'd probably rather trot naked down Broadway, but the idea isn't entirely fanciful. There was melody skulking in places where you didn't expect it, and shards of Spandau Balletish pomp-pop that stirred memories of a time when no velvet gilet was too ludicrous.

The propulsive kick of the more upbeat songs, especially crowd favourite Jenny, was down to the dynamic between Christensen and his bass-playing foil, Amanda Tannen. He jiggled like a five-year-old needing the toilet, she was glacial enough to be a model, and when they sang together, her drone contrasted disturbingly with his startled neigh. They are classic double-act material - her "I'm-with-stupid" glance kept him grounded on the staccato Staying Entertained, when his twitchings threatened to spiral into hysteria, and his kerrayzeeness coaxed her into her most bootylicious playing on the Cure-like In the Walls.

Stellastarr* have pretentions in spades, some tappy tunes and the sense to know that 40 minutes of compacted angst is enough for one evening. Far less entertaining things have tickled the public's fancy.