Night & Day Cafe, 8 December.

The only real surprise is that it took this long. 'It' being the weighty fallout from the past year's rampant US back-to-basics guitar-glut; the Strokes, White Stripes et al.

Not that this should blur the ascension of Sheffield's Hoggboy with unwieldy 'Britain's answer to the Strokes' fanfares. And not when the title of 'Britain's Best New Band' seems an entirely more suitable plaudit. Which it undoubtedly is.

Proving that, like NYC's finest before them, you can have absolutely no new musical tricks whatever but still rock with the best of them, the nascent Sheffield foursome plumb the very depths of rock'n'roll's most hair-raising moments, emerging like a sleazy, uproarious hybrid of The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Suede and Ramones glam/punk rock stomp.

They certainly look the part; Tom, Hugh, Bailey and Ritchie almost like caricatures of your ideal, snotty subterranean-dwelling rock creatures, all '70s leather threads and insouciant swagger.

A prospect that had the nation's A&R men scrambling for their chequebooks at this year's In the City convention and something which you can at last witness for yourselves at this eagerly-awaited Rock'n'Roll suicide bash making the switch from John Willie Lee's to opulent cave Night & Day Café for one night only.

After that we have debut single 'So Young', a quivering wall of rock'n'roll dustbowl-noise intent, and in the great tradition of Oasis' 'Supersonic' and Suede's 'The Drowners' before it, a single which outright demands you have an opinion on it.

In the meantime, better to leap aboard the Hoggboy bandwagon now before the world and his wife eventually does. Just don't even dare mention the Strokes…

David Sue

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