Ladytron may have swapped their all-black terrorist chic for cute silvery Atari wind-jammers tonight, but they are still in uniform, still the serious face of retro electronic cool. Affected? Sure. Disaffected? Possibly. But it could just be nerves, heightened by bringing their dead-eyed electro-pop before fans of wacky Belgian headliners Soulwax. That, and terrible sound.

During several songs, Mira Aroyo and Helen Marnie's vocals are feedback-tinged or plain inaudible, while oblique consumerism critique Paco and Another Breakfast With You sound not just harsh, but like spanners being thrown about in an empty gasometer.

As Ladytron's circuits settle, however, they begin to gleam. Playgirl, a gloriously blank, new wave disco fizz-bang, is (like Ladytron) caught between glamour and alienation. "Playgirl, why are you dancing?" asks an anaesthetised Marnie, "when you could be alone?" Its naive keyboard solo, worthy of early Depeche Mode, is sublime.

Indeed, for all Ladytron's austerity and precision, their wheezy old keyboards lend a warm fuzz to, say, the percolating Discotrax. They reach perfection in He Took Her to a Movie. Their delivery may be emotionally dead, but this spare, obsessive story of a menage à trois is the sound of someone buttoning down big emotions. Less is more.

Enthusiastic Europeans - Liverpudlians Daniel Hunt and Reuben Wu hooked up with Marnie and Bulgarian Aroyo during travels in Scandinavia, Paris and eastern Europe - Ladytron will perhaps always go down better at Berlin squat parties and continental electronica festivals than they do in Britain. Carefully constructing an image - and mixing Bulgarian Marxist school songs with tales of unfaithful boys - will always be seen as suspiciously intellectual. Ladytron's escapism, however, is neither easy nor kitsch. They're an enigma, but one you want to investigate further.

• Ladytron play Southampton University (023-8057 8417) tonight.