Two litters of young pups at the Cellar tonight, both of whom showed plenty of wide-eyed enthusiasm and talent, without suggesting they’re anything like the finished product as yet. Still, it’s a tribute to the Oxford scene that youthful bands like this can get slots in good venues at this stage in their development. If they were from Swindon they’d probably be told to come back when they were forty, bald and after they had played Van Morrison covers at weddings for a decade.

Half Naked are a trio of musos pretending to be punks or punks pretending to be musos, and were stylistically a bit random, performing serviceable teen-punk with detours into whiteboy reggae and ska, though the drummer looked as if he really wanted to be playing high speed polkas. Opener ‘Generation Sarah’ was a lengthy piece of yelpy punk noise, with the band sounding like a steeplechase in which you fear a steaming, churning pileup is just over the next fence. To be fair, all three riders made it home.

There are some deft touches throughout, a nimble drum solo here, a well-drilled high speed bass riff there, but at the moment there’s too much angularity, too much tired emo posturing and too much iffy singing to mark them down as pedigree pups just yet. Still they have a gauche, easy manner, instrumental chops and plenty of time. Further criticism would make me start sounding like Alan Partridge telling a French clown to “grow up”, so that’ll do for now.

We caught Deer Chicago at Charlbury this year, where they won a few friends with some  politely-picked lightly-emotive guitar pop. I guess they are in the market for the sort of audience who like Snow Patrol or liked Fell City Girl, though they lack the pop craftsmanship of the former, the intrinsic lovability of the latter, and the tunes of both. Still, there are moments in many of their songs which are gorgeous, the playing is sound and unflashy and the singing urgent and soaring. But there’s something a bit dumb about a lot of it, and that’s not just the name. Maybe a bit too stagey, a bit by-the-numbers, even a bit manipulative: somewhere inside a cynical demon is telling me  I’d be a chump if I cried at any of this band’s songs.

Still, as said, there are moments when the demon is drowned out; the portentous post-rock closing number, benefitting from added guitar loops and glockenspiel, was an immersive experience. As the old song goes, we’re not in love but we’re open to persuasion.