Shivaree, Bush Hall, London<br></br>Queen Adreena, Underworld, London

My name's Ambrosia Parsley, good night!

When she was a child in Reseda, California, Ambrosia Parsley's eldest brother was given an air rifle for Christmas.

Children being children, they'd play a game called Over The Fence, in which they'd roll a pair of dice, and whatever number came up, big bro would pump his rifle that number of times, determining the velocity of the pellet. Then Ambrosia and her twin brother would have to run like crazy to the end of their garden and clamber over a fence covered in splinters, nails, spikes and birdshit, hoping to be the first to tumble into a festering pile of garbage in the alley on the other side. That was the lucky one. The slower, less fortunate Parsley sibling would have to stay on the lawn to face big bro and his one-man pneumatically-powered firing squad. To this day, Ambrosia's twin brother has a metal pellet lodged in his chin.

It's the way she tells them, y'see, and maybe you have to be there, but Shivaree's Ambrosia Parsley – yes, she'll politely confirm, that is her real name – is such an engaging raconteuse that she could quite feasibly pursue a career in stand-up comedy (which is, ironically enough, precisely what her bullet-riddled brother has done with his life). It's not a major problem, but rather often, the stories behind the songs are more entertaining than the songs themselves.

The reconditioned Bush Hall on Uxbridge Road is a gloriously luxurious venue – all chandeliers, plaster of Paris cherubs, and signs reading "discourteous patrons will be ejected" – and it's the perfect setting for a Shivaree concert (indeed, for just about any concert, and more bands should play there rather than the sticky-floored cattlesheds in which I am obliged to spend the majority of my evenings in order to provide you with front-line dispatches from the pop wars). Despite the setting, which could scarcely be more conducive to elegance, poise and cool, Ambrosia can't take her own mystique seriously: when "Goodnight Moon", last year's Dawson's Creek-aided mini-hit, is greeted with gasps of joy, she cracks up laughing.

The speciality of this particular many-tricked pony is to fuse the Sound Of The West (US, 1940s) with the Sound Of The West (UK, 1990s). That is to say, classic Nashville country with Bristolian trip-hop: the typical Shivaree song is located equidistantly between Cowboy Junkies and Massive Attack. From where I'm sitting, Parsley is the spit of Karen Carpenter and, aurally as well as visually, that's not a bad comparison. Further fuel for the argument that old people are the new young people is provided by Ambrosia's grizzled sidemen Duke McVinnie (guitar) and Danny McGough (keyboards), veteran touring musicians who have served time with Bob Dylan, Johnny Otis, Tom Waits and JJ Cale. McGough's manic, wracked movements are a stark counterpoint to Parsley's immobility, and McVinnie, although preferring to remain seated, contributes a mean Iggy-esque growl to "Flycatcher".

After their finale, a slow motion version of Jerry Lee Lewis's "Great Balls of Fire", those chandeliers light up the room, breaking the spell completely. As Roy Orbison's "It's Over" wafts from the speakers, you realise why Shivaree are so likeable: if you're going to be a thief, be an honest one.

Elsewhere in this issue, I've written on the power of children to unwittingly convey adult trauma. It works both ways: sometimes, adults are better at expressing childhood trauma. Queen Adreena take the stage to some old Looney Tunes ragtime number, then, as a tinkling kiddie's music box melody starts up, Katie Jane Garside sings, Björkishly, of being trapped like "a wasp in a jar", her voice full of unspecified dread.

There's a noble tradition of this kind of thing, running back through Siouxsie's "Playground Twist" and "Spellbound" to that episode of The Twilight Zone about talking dolls that kill, to any number of cautionary Victorian poems about playing with matches or not eating your soup. It's not always easy to decipher Queen Adreena's lyrics, but Garside's mad-sister-in-the-attic appearance, combined with her terror-stricken vocal style as she implores "Don't wake up!", recall the nightmares of early infancy.

You may remember Garside and Crispin Gray, her elegant scarecrow of a guitarist, as one half of Daisy Chainsaw, the chaotic flowerpunk ensemble with one of those ever-popular vegetable matter/cutting implement names (see also Strawberry Switchblade), whose 1991 hit "Love Your Money" sounded like the New York Dolls falling down the stairs while Bow Wow Wow waited for them at the bottom, beating out a rhythm on the tom-toms. Too perverse to repeat the formula, Daisy Chainsaw released a further few public-bewildering records before fading from view.

Now reconvened as Queen Adreena, they make a kinetic metal sound (tonight's gig is part of the Metal Hammer Week) which, thanks to Katie Jane's lacerated-larynx caterwaul, resembles a British Babes In Toyland, and has chimed with the New Glam Underground: fairy wings, glitter and baby-goth get-ups are everywhere.

After a chilling solo tone poem, Katie Jane drops the mic with a clunk, and vanishes into the night. My own childhood is but a sepia memory, but Queen Adreena scare the living daylights out of me. Sweet dreams ...

s.price@independent.co.uk

Queen Adreena: New Bands tent, Glastonbury Festival (0115 912 9129), 28 June