Despite the inadvertent hilarity France is likely to contribute to Eurovision, it has been unfashionable for several years to accuse the French of pop ineptitude. Electronica acts like Air and a host of rappers have given the country reason to hold its head up, even if, outside strictly-defined dance boundaries, they still know as much about rock as we do about coordinating accessories.

Still, it seems timely to query why the likes of Air and their Côte d'Azur compatriots M83 are considered too cool for ecole, but old-timer Jean-Michel Jarre is thought risible. The only difference is that Jarre performs his instrumental space-rock in front of skyscrapers and pyramids, while M83 are confined to the workaday club circuit. The pretentiousness is identical. Of course, the French don't think this kind of thing is pretentious, which gives M83 licence to profoundly bore.

Translated live at their biggest London show to date, the current album, Before the Dawn Heals Us, is a splodge of post-rock beefed up by strobe lights. This would be some people's chemically-enhanced idea of heaven, but leader Anthony Gonzalez himself seemed to be inflicting it with a completely clear head, a worrying thought.

Gonzalez, who looks a bit like a young Tony Blair, plays guitar and keyboards, and occasionally sings in a pleasing tenor. But vocals play a tiny role in what is basically an instrumental show, with all the numbing diddling-around that this entails.

One thing you can say for them: they make mountains out of molehills. Little ideas turn into miniature film scores, as on the dense, druggy Night, which spins off one keyboard riff and swirls round and round for about a year. The single Don't Save Us from the Flames does the same thing, more engagingly, with an icy choral loop. On a jollier note, a track simply called * rocks along disjointedly, like the chase scene in a cheesy action flick.

The M83 live experience can be summed up as My Bloody Valentine for the Vicodin generation - or Jarre without the budget.