Since Pretty Girls Make Graves was originally a 1983 Smiths song about impotence, it's ironic that Mancunian wordsmith Morrissey has helped sire a mixed-race, mixed-sex bundle of repressed frustration from Seattle. Like the Smiths, Pretty Girls Make Graves deliver well-thought-out and impassioned blasts about the balance of sexual power within and outside of relationships. However, musically they couldn't be less like the Smiths if they had announced a worldwide ban on daffodils.

Like an increasing number of angry bands, PGMG's touchstone is the experimental end of late-1970s punk, in particular Penetration and Siouxsie and the Banshees. However, torrents of angular guitars delivered over a funky backing recall recent Red Hot Chili Peppers.

It is certainly difficult not to respond to their passion, which erupts from the speakers. Within moments, they're shouting: "Do you remember when the music mattered?" It's less a cry of nostalgia (the band are in their 20s) than throwing down a gauntlet to anyone within earshot.

The band's sound is constructed around the interlocking guitars of Jason Clark and Nathen Johnson. However, at their core stands vocalist Andrea Zollo, who is so elfin she barely reaches the top of the microphone but has the attitude of a six-foot skinhead.

Lyrics fly from the electric stew. "Don't try to tell me what I already know," she cries, but doesn't claim to have the answers. Her songs probe the modern malaise of TV, vulnerability, stress and addiction, enjoying the release as much as the search for solutions. She can be funny, too, moaning that the venue sounds like a " wind tunnel" and mocking the sound problems.

Despite a technical hitch, which delays the start and cuts the set short, a combination of early songs and the imminent New Romance album survives. The band climax with This Is Our Emergency, a song about the power of communication. It would be a surprise if PGMG remain in tiny venues like this for long.

· At the Charlotte, Leicester (0115 9129000), tonight, then touring.