Apparently, sales of guitars are at an 18-year high, which explains the sudden predominance of sharp, young guitar-toting hipsters on the live circuit. It seems like every one of these bands has been "hotly tipped" by someone or other, which is especially mysterious in the case of the Open. Hailing from the unglamorous towns of Walsall and Birkenhead, they are fronted by a cocksure, leather-jacketed Noel Gallagher type with an a habit of repeatedly messing up his hair just so, and a bass player whose beard/hair combination is almost certainly illegal. Uncoincidentally, they sound like a collision of Oasis at their most dull and the kind of prog rock that is usually sectioned off by barbed wire and fierce dogs. They stomp off in a hail of flailing instruments, and one prays they won't be able to afford any more.

The Stills, from Montreal, have spent so much on guitars that they can't afford a haircut between them. Their fringes hang over their noses, but this gives them a classically lovelorn look that suits their sound. Unusually for Canadians, who almost always sound like Bryan Adams, they are offering an intriguingly rockier take on the moody sounds of 1980s England. Tim Fletcher's melancholy, dark-edged moan is reminiscent of the Smiths, Comsat Angels and Echo and the Bunnymen. However, the band aren't averse to nicking a bassline from Public Image Limited and drily parodying Morrissey ("I hate my best friends") and themselves (a song called Love and Death). It all adds up to give them a distinctive character.

When an amp packs up, the band gamely continue to cast a spell - despite the presence of a worried-looking man dashing about the stage clutching a screwdriver. Hopeless romantics that stand out from the ranks of the unromantically hopeless.

· At Stereo, Glasgow, tonight. Box office: 0141-576 5018. Then touring.