"It's a matter of the eternal quest for the groove," says singer Nic Offer. "For the funkiest, fattest thing you've ever heard."

Not a punk band or a funk band but something somewhere in between this Brooklyn-based seven-piece have proved one of the most talked about bands of the last year. And this really is quite an achievement, given the pitfalls involved in attempting to pronounce their name.

Written !!! and represented, for the purposes of verbal namechecking, by any three repetitive utterances (Chk-Chk-Chk, Pow-Pow-Pow, Etc-Etc-Etc), the band's moniker was inspired by a subtitling quirk in the film The Gods Must Be Crazy and serves, they hope, as "a reflection of the band's shared excitement".

And while it does make their records a bit tricky to file, it's certainly preferable to The Artists Formally Known As Yah Mos And The Popesmashers.

Formed in 1997 when these two American outfits fused, !!! are also affiliated with James Murphy's wittily hip disco-punk project LCD Soundsystem.

But they created a specific following in 2003 with the release of Me And Giuliani Down By The School Yard (A True Story), a stuttering, sax-tinged and highly seductive call for the former NYC mayor to chill out and take to the dance floor.

"In the Nineties, everyone just stood around, arms folded, going, 'yeah, cool man'," says drummer-cum-vocalist John Pugh. "That wasn't our idea of fun, so we just started a party band."

!!!'s definition of party music, as expounded on 2004's album Louden Up Now, is a hypnotic marriage of disco kitsch and propulsive noise in which sparkling synths cleanse dirty beats and menacing vocals penetrate rumbling trance. And the effect is a mix of feelgood vibe and head-pounding intensity which would generally need the support of a dozen vodka and Cokes.

Prefering to refer to "dance parties" rather than "gigs", !!! are currently on a UK tour bolstered by major festival appearances and will release the eagerly awaited follow up to Louden Up Now early next year.

But a good starting point for newcomers is their current single, a double A-side covering Nate Dogg's Get Up and Magnetic Fields' Take Ecstasy With Me, which last month secured NME's Single Of The Week.

"We decided to try some different styles before we began writing the next album, to teach ourselves something new," explains Offer. "We learned a lot from trying to make a pop song, using a string quartet and generally trying to make a song for people to lose their s*** to on drugs."

With support from clamorous rockers S Rock Levinso.

Starts 8pm. Tickets £10. Call 01273 673311