Absurdly skinny New York electro- poppers the Bravery have polarised music fans from the outset. For every acolyte lauding their self-titled debut album earlier this year, an equal number have dismissed them as louche chancers cynically riding the coat-tails of their superior art-rock rivals, the Killers.

Singer Sam Endicott even became embroiled in an entertaining faux-spat with the Las Vegas band, but nine months on it's the Bravery who appear to be floundering. This is their fifth London gig since the album appeared, with little sign of new material hoving over the horizon. Such familiarity could easily pall, but to their credit the Bravery's hi-octane power-pop remains hook-laden and dynamic enough to avoid breeding contempt. Endicott, an engaging front man, throws shapes that distract from the fact that his band do little that could be described as original.

The album, a grab-bag of synth-pop tics and mannerisms, could have been recorded in 1981. The plaintive No Brakes and the Ring Song are as diligently overwrought as the Cure, while some dull filler material recalls long-forgotten 1980s electro-poppers A Flock of Seagulls and Fiction Factory. Their best moment, the thrusting An Honest Mistake, remains the finest single Duran Duran never made.

It's hard to avoid the thought that the Bravery are a perfect summary of the state of indie rock today, but bring little to the party themselves.

New track Angelina is reliably slick and polished, a sub-Kaiser Chiefs study in casual retro-pop cool, but shows few signs of veering from their tried-and-trusted musical formula. A new album is due next year: it's fair to say that the Bravery's future is riding on it.