SPACE are four likely Liverpudlian lads who have learned one of the most important lessons of chart oriented Nineties pop music - why be original when you can assimilate? Especially if you're off to Japan the next day.

Leaving it all said and done in that way, however, would be to do Space a disservice, for they are by far one of the more successful pop bands around. Like all bands who assimilate many influences from other bands, however, what you sound like depends on whose work you choose to assimilate. Inevitably those choices will suit some and not others. For this critic, at the very least, Space pulled through by virtue of their bare faced cheek.

Sounding like The Buzzcocks backed by EMF and Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, Space initially utilise the trappings of rave, loop, and sample culture to create a stirring dance atmosphere, only to smash it to smithereens by transferring to a basic punk blueprint. The result is not as fundamentally dumb as it sounds. While lead vocalist/bassist Tommy Scott, and guitarist Jamie Murphy regale the crowd with variants of their cheeky chappie personas, it is smiling keyboard player Franny Griffiths who supplies equally crowd pleasing textures from a variety of instruments. The drummer, Andy Parle, is lost amidst hip hop samples and the tiny stage, the only casualty of the evening.

Songs such as the hit singles, Female Of The Species. You And Me Versus The World, and Neighbourhood, may stand out as the most obvious audience anthems, but other ones like Mr Psycho and No One Understands are indicative of the band's overtly poptastic pace and style.

So Space - more a "watch this" than a "waste of" band. Japan - which has a yen for this type of thing - should be falling at their feet as you read.