Isosceles @ Cabaret Voltaire, 17 Aug

With a night of fresh talent at Cabaret Voltaire, Sunday's installment of The Edge Festival delivers to us three distinctively different takes on pop-rock music.
Night openers Pooch (****) jump from 70s rock-inspired jams to synth-heavy electro numbers, with strong female vocals - I keep recalling Pat Benatar - equally workable in each arena. Next up, pushing cuteness to a new threshold, we find Futuristic Retro Champions (***), where you can't help but smile and sing along as the wide-eyed popsters repeat the formula of pushing catchy choruses over a Casio beat.

Capping the mix-and-match showcase are Isosceles (****), and with this band, it's the weirder the better. Sharing much in common with anything you might consider 'art-rock', they do it very well. Angular guitar hits compliment the at-times carnivalesque organ pumping, and a Bowie Queen Bitch squeal over Get Your Hands Off makes for good marks in the vocals department. The band loses a little steam when things get too conventional, but the Glaswegians deliver an inspired take on Kitch Bitch, leaving the Cab Vol crowd on a high. [Jason Morton]