PINS @ The Hug and Pint, Glasgow, 13 February

If you’ve ever wondered how Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky would sound gone deliciously wrong, Manchester’s leather-clad urchins Peace and Love Barbershop Muhammed Ali (presumably they couldn’t agree on a name, so simply mashed various suggestions together) arrive to let us know in no uncertain terms. Deploying scuzzy bass and as much delay as they can get away with, fretboards aligned defiantly at one-o’clock, their reworking of garage rock trope suggests style over substance – but what style it is, antagonistic and blurry in just the right proportions.

And if PALBMA rock their Stooges influence in interesting patterns, then PINS are eclectic, didactic, and pareidolic. Which may be a bizarre chain of adjectives to attach to common or garden indie pop, except they really are that good. All sparkly tops and fizzy attitude, they certainly know their way around a riff, yet the execution is gloriously non-phallic, celebrating who they are rather than aping male structures.

Majoring on last year’s Wild Nights LP – tracks such as Molly and Young Girls sounding resplendent – there’s still plenty of room for older favourites, early single LUVU4LYF bouncing with glee, Girls Like Us segueing into Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun without sounding the least bit corny (there’s also a preview of forthcoming Record Store Day release Trouble, proving again their neat line in songcraft).  

Later, from the lip of the stage, and front-woman Faith Holgate declares that “It’s a busy room; let’s dance!” before launching into Waiting for the End; it would have been churlish to decline.