When Will I Be Famous: Interpol, Apparat Organ Quartet, The Rapture

Steve Jelbert reviews tomorrow's bands today

The latest gaggle of young men in suits and ties from New York, the oddly named Interpol, are here to bring a little gloom into your life. Firmly in thrall to great miserable English music of the past, they look back to the pre-Ecstasy Manchester sound of Joy Division and the largely forgotten Chameleons, just like Doves, who aren't exactly starving these days. Though the rigid structures, tribal drumming from Sam Fogarino and the unconvincing corporate image might grate, songs like "Untitled" (groan) with its guitar stabs and the shameless Bunnymen facsimile "NYC" (short for "New York cares") have real power. Whether you find the accumulative effect merely wearing rather than entrancing depends on your age and general state of happiness, though their one nod to jollity, "Say Hello to the Angels", which borrows the beat from "This Charming Man", is plain awful. They have enough visual curiosity to satisfy; singer Paul Banks resembles a preppy Howlin' Pelle and bassist Carlos D is Crispin Glover. Guaranteed to do well among teens who can't be seen to enjoy the Strokes any more, they're a perfect soundtrack to a cosy evening in, engrossed in a depressing book.

A weekend of Icelandic frolics at the ICA (surprise) concluded with a terrific set from the hugely unlikely Apparat Organ Quartet, something of a local supergroup (they played as The Helvitis Organ Symphony the previous night) who wield unwieldy old instruments while a drummer pounds behind them. God knows what stock usually fills Reykjavik's second-hand music stores, but most of it must have been here tonight. Sadly, when one keyboard broke down after the excellent current single "Stereo Rock'n'Roll" (Kraftwerk meets the Glitter Band and everyone wins), the only microphone on stage was fixed to a vocoder, thus inspiring the robotic cry of "This is out of order". Much of their music does evoke the spooky prog soundtracks of old Dario Argento horror movies, and may possibly bear titles like "A Trail Of Blood Leads Across the Snow from Sven's Cabin". Who knows? For men who look like a team from Robot Wars they make one hell of a racket.

The Rapture are more New Yorkers. On record the trio (currently augmented by a largely inaudible saxophonist) have so far provided some impressive, amiable punk-funk, in the recently rediscovered NYC tradition of ESG and Liquid Liquid, but live they're a quite different beast – post-punk filtered through two decades of hardcore influence. If anyone right now hits a guitar harder than singer Luke, I'd be surprised. Yet they manage the difficult trick of playing uptight music in a relaxed fashion. And it works. People dance, with worried expressions, notably to the fantastic extended take of the single, "House of Jealous Lovers". Right now The Rapture are a seriously unmissable live act. It'll be interesting to see how John Lydon takes their knowing tribute to his influential PiL project when they support the Sex Pistols at Crystal Palace this month.