Of all the current musical flavours of the month which invite critical cynicism, The Horrors must be top of the tree.

They look like a particularly tactless feature of the average theme park's Haunted House, brandishing cloaks, a few stalwart items from Robert Smith's wardrobe and enough eyeliner to require another shipment order from the make-up counter at Boots.

There were serious, self-respecting music fans here tonight though, and it was easy to see why once the trifle of playing some tunes had got under way.

What's not to love about ridiculously cliched riffs played by Rocky Horror Show stand-ins, I thought, as the organist attempted comically one-dimensional theatrics?

Faris Badwan's lurching from one side of the stage to the other, via a central pedestal, would have left Justin Hawkins reflecting on where his unutterably irritating mawkishness had gone wrong.

As the moshpit grew several rows back, safety men struggled to protect the baying teenage masses from losing chunks of their skinny black jeans.

The adolescent moshers who suffered nosebleeds were particularly unlucky given the effort they had put in to matching their aforementioned trouserwear with white T-shirts.

Like the ghost ride the band seem to gain most of their atmospheric inspiration from, this cavalcade of preposterousness could only go on so long before the novelty died a gristly death. The decision to keep the set down to less than half an hour was either the most mercifully well-chosen idea of the night or testament to the difficulties of producing the same bass line a dozen times.

Either way, it seemed Scrooge-like not to join the ecstatic reception each surreal bolt of noise received, while perhaps the only effect missing was a cartoon-style thunder clap from the sound booth archives. As emo nights go, it may be some time before the Concorde manages to top this.