Like the rest of the singer-songwriter brat pack, Eugene McGuinness is adept at turning the ordinary into the poetic, as likely to detail the morning after the beery night before as he is to sing about chasing rainbows.

The 21-year-old has an old soul that belies his freshly scrubbed face. His Fred Perry T-shirt, with collar up, is regulation Arctic Monkeys, but when he sings, shades of Rufus Wainwright pour out. His melodies often hurtle along like a boy racer in a Bugatti, but nothing can obscure McGuinness's affection for show tunes and Sinatra. This intriguing mix of the modern and comfortingly old-fashioned is what makes his debut mini-album, The Early Learnings of Eugene McGuinness, such a treat. The title is a nod to the toy orchestra that plinkity-plunks around each hymn to post-adolescence, rich in harmonies, piano and guitar. On stage, however, it's just McGuinness and an acoustic guitar, fighting against a tidal wave of chatter. Though the seedy glamour of the venue is the perfect setting for his vignettes, it's so small that the longing of A Girl Whom My Eyes Shine For But My Shoes Run From is bruised by demands at the bar. Though the sneer of Vampire Casino temporarily silences the noise, High Score doesn't survive without its armour of keyboards and drums, and McGuinness sounds like a chorister rehearsing in Piccadilly Circus.

It doesn't help that McGuinness squeezes as many words as possible into his songs, and his breathless vocals make the high notes in Nightshift sound forced. If he can just slip some of the patience he displays tonight into his music, he'll leave his contemporaries behind.

· At The Social, London, on August 25. Box office: 020-7636 4992. Then touring.