"It's nice to be back in Scotland," declares Space frontman Tommy Scott, clad in a Ghostbusters T-shirt. "I don't think we've been here since we supported Catatonia." How times change. Then, Catatonia seemed such surefire superstars that David Owens felt confident enough to write a book called Cerys, Catatonia and the Rise of Welsh Pop. Now, Cerys Matthews has gone country and Space, after record company disputes, a departed drummer and a premature Greatest Hits, are back where they started.

As befits a band with a point to prove, the fourpiece don't waste any time, opening with a jaunty Mr Psycho before launching into a raft of songs from new album Suburban Rock'n'Roll. The bulk of the crowd, who have obviously come to get a quick nostalgia hit and jump up and down to Me and You Versus the World, start nodding politely.

The success of fellow Liverpool fusion-merchants the Coral might seem to suggest that Space's time has come again. But while the former mix genres and lyrical conceits, and sound invigoratingly game, Space have always felt a little too much like a novelty band, like a group without a sound of their own who make amends with constant karaoke. It wouldn't be so bad if Scott had a decent voice. Instead, he strains his way over the top of the reggae-lite Neighbourhood, makes oddly gleeful stage announcements ("This next song is about perverts") and starts mugging like a pantomime dame when he's required to do anything bar a straight delivery. Which seems to be almost all of the time.

Some of this may be down to nerves and, as the rather underwhelmed crowd thins out, things do get better. Quiet Beach is a lovely new number and the gig's conclusion, which sees drummer Yorkie's birthday celebrated while the band twinkle their way through Female of the Species, is engaging. But, for a bunch of supposed eccentrics, Space seem frighteningly ordinary.

· At Sugarhouse, Lancaster (01524 63508), on April 21.