There are too many bands out there doing the same thing with no imagination and no passion. There are too many bands who come onstage and are happy to phone in performances with the minimum of fuss and drama. There are too many bands out there who are hung up on the waif-like demands of popular culture and heroin chic. However, Ultrasound are also out there, bringing a hefty chunk of glamour into the usually anaemic British indie scene.

When you see them live the first thing you notice is their front man, Tiny. His large belly hangs over his trousers, sticking out of his T-shirt shouting for attention. His guitar rests on it snugly and it takes on a life of its own as the momentum from Tiny’s performance sets its mass moving. It is the latest essential pop star accessory and it is the first of many things that sets Ultrasound apart from most pop star wannabe’s.

Guitarist Richard says: "If things get boring and samey we start to do the opposite quite naturally, but there are a lot of the things that set us apart. I mean, from the start there is the shape of our lead singer."

Musically they differ from the Embrace lad-rock orthodoxy by bringing in elements of Bowie and Suede before ejaculating singles like ’Stay Young’ which was the highlight of their recent appearance at the Pulp in the Park bash and their most spectacular release so far.

"It came about because I’d written a chorus to it and then I couldn’t get a handle on the verse so I gave it to Tiny and said just write a verse for this chorus and he put a completely opposite slant on it. There’s all kinds of opposites in it, as there is a lot of cynicism in it but also a lot of naivety in it at the same time. It’s just playing around with a lot of the ideas about growing old and what we need to kind of resist happening to us as we grow old. It’s also about the fact that ageing isn’t the disease it’s made out to be. You can get older and not get crap is basically the message. That you should never try to be something you’re not."

Now they are just making the finishing touches to an album that should place them at the forefront of the new British indie scene along with the nonsensical but inspired experimentalism of the Beta Band and the anguished guitar assault of Six By Seven. What all these bands share is an obsession with making music that is markedly different from the norm. Ultrasound’s experiments are even surprising themselves.

"It’s all coming out quite different to how we expected really. It’s like trying to get from A to B and ending up at C. It’s like we aim for one thing and always end up somewhere else that’s even better. It keeps surprising us all the time what it is that we’re actually doing. I don’t think we’ve ever really heard what we do because we’re always too busy doing it. I think that’s a good thing that it sounds very like us. We’ve really messed around with things as well and experimented a lot with computers and samplers."

Whether this opus will match the high expectations generated by the band’s press so far we will have to wait and see. However, if you can catch them live in the meantime it will be a trip worth making. Just watch the passion and energy they put into each performance and marvel at the most glamorous belly in rock.

Ultrasound were talking to Ben Ladkin, in October 1998.