The phenomenon of young indie bands selling vast quantities of their first album seems to be less prevalent now than it was when the Kooks, Fratellis and Hard-fi were setting up home in the charts for months.

This year, the kids don't seem quite so willing to worship the likes of the Twang, the Pigeon Detectives or Reverend and the Makers, making Coventry trio the Enemy the closest Britain has come recently to a band achieving greatness straight out of the blocks.

Teenagers Tom Clarke, Liam Watts and Andy Hopkins looked right at home in Brixton Academy's grand space, despite being collectively so small that the stage looked twice as far away as it really was.

They seemed as convinced as the crowd that their debut album, We'll Live and Die in These Towns, is the finest rock debut of the past few months, and with last week's Q Award for Best New Act under their belts, they had cockiness to burn.

They must have studied at the Oasis and Arctic Monkeys school of stage craft, simply standing still and belting out their songs hard and fast.

Musically, the tuneful punk of the Jam loomed large. Their album's title track sounded so much like Going Underground it could have been a cover.

The problem with bands peaking too soon is that they don't have enough songs for a major show, and that was still the case here. But the quality of a handful of anthems suggested that the Enemy will be our friends for a good while yet.