Hot - or, rather, not

HOT CLUB DE PARIS / THIS TOWN NEEDS GUNS / FROM HERE WE RUN, 24TH FEBRUARY 2010, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN

What difference does six months make? In the case of From Here We Run, not that much. Sure, there's been a bit of an improvement since our first rendez-vous, at the Cellar at the tail end of August last year, but the same criticisms still apply - they're not tight enough or at least are too fussy and overcomplicated (laudable though their ambition is), and frontwoman Pieteke still sounds as though she's stumbled into a boys' club rather than being fully integrated within the band.

So much for the proteges - now for the real deal. But tonight This Town Needs Guns - purveyors of mathy emo, or "tappy tappy" as a friend has christened the genre - are a bit off target themselves, bungling one song half way through and sheepishly having to pick up the pieces. The fact that I can't remember there being vocals or that Jamie Cooper of fellow Oxonians Hreda plays bass suggests I may have been more drunk than I thought at Southsea Fest in September. Either way, This Town Needs Guns could perhaps rechristen themselves This Band Needs Hooks without fear of false advertising.

Which means it's all down to headliners Hot Club De Paris - who, it turns out, aren't really up to the job. You'd have thought that sounding like the Futureheads as interpreted and performed by Lily Savage would be more entertaining and diverting than it actually is, and sadly there's precious little of note other than the guitarist's complaint about being refused tobacco at the age of 29 (among a few other snatches of barely audible banter) and the two songs delivered a cappella by the three of them clustered together at the front of the stage. Lukewarm or Tepid Club De Paris doesn't really have the same ring to them, though...