Don't let the New York birthplace and tenuous links to the Strokes fool you: Liars make the current breed of three-minute punksters look like the Monkees. Nasty, sprawling and very, very angry, Liars cling to each frenzied second as though they are dancing with the devil himself.

Their debut album, the eloquently named They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, is an all-out attack on the senses, its ear-piercing shrieks unremitting. This rage is aflame on stage. Bassist Pat Nature and guitarist Aaron Hemphill throw themselves into the fractured punk rhythms, bent over their instruments, their bodies shaking. Drummer Ron Albertson plays so intensely that the rest of the band turn to face him, drawn to his violent sound.

Eccentric Australian frontman Angus Andrew is fey but furious. Dressed in a white shirt, tight white trousers and an ill-fitting baseball cap, he combines white-trash taste with sinister charm. He twitches in time to the jolting rhythm as though linked up to the national grid during a Coronation Street ad break, and peels off his shirt in a menacing manner. He prowls around to the dirty bass of Grown Men Don't Fall in the River, Just Like That, then writhes on top of a speaker. Flinging himself into the crowd, he looks eager for a reaction other than the bemusement that confronts him

Liars' music is a love-it-or-hate-it cocktail of child-like chanting and adult fury based loosely around notions of sex, drugs and politics. The limitations of the songs appear as the aggression gets complacent. There is little subtlety to the likes of We Live NE of Compton, although it does boast glam-rock drum beats. Andrew lets his shouty whine fall to a low murmur for a new song (tonight titled We're Still Young Enough To Lay Down in Front of the Speakers, he tells us) but it's not enough to dispel the impression that Liars need to get out and see a little sunshine.