London’s New Young Pony Club came to prominence in 2006 when they opened the NME Rave Tour alongside the Klaxons and CSS and, although they did well on the back of the emerging nu rave scene, NYPC only ever loosely fitted in with that genre. The bands they emerged with were disorganised in their sound, organic comings together of blissed out clubbers with anarchical musical results. NYPC were slick, real students of dance music, each groove carefully moulded in a studio with a chemical formula to make you move your feet. Comparisons to Prince, Talking Heads and classic disco would have been more accurate. Besides, nu rave is over: the Klaxons are struggling to follow up their debut, CSS have gone and NYPC are trying to re-establish themselves having spent three years on a second album, The Optimist, which they are promoting tonight.

Despite the break, there’s been very little change in both the type and quality of songs from NYPC. They start with Chaos, spawned from the same stable as earlier work: a regimented drum beat starts the song which is soon joined by a bubbling bass line, then a power pop keyboard refrain and finally a very catchy chorus. The Bomb, Lost a Girl, The Get Go and breakthrough hit Ice Cream all keep to this formula, which seems pretty fireproof. Even their cover of PJ Harvey’s riff-driven Dress turns into an electro floor filler when it is given the treatment. The O2 isn’t completely full tonight, which detracts a little from the party atmosphere the band aim to create, but their set is good enough for this not to matter too much. NPC have a clinical way of meshing hip swaying grooves with pop perfection in each of their songs. They may not fit in with any specific trend that comes along throughout their career, but they are so good, there should always be an audience for them somewhere.