On Monday night Oxford Art Factory was ablaze, with CSS hosting a mean electro-pop-rock party with antics to spare. Complete with huge inflatable beer jug props and costume changes, as well as their distinctively catchy tunes, CSS impressed with their music as well as their never ending energy and Lovefoxxx’s laugh-out-loud one-liners.

The stage was set as the Alohoa Island Party, resplendent with a big plastic palm tree taking centre stage behind the drum kit emblazoned with a masking tape CSS logo. The band members were comfortable jamming in jeans and tee shirts and still looked cooler than cool, as only Brazilians can. Lovefoxxx, the exhuberant front-lady, was full of beans, rocking out in short shorts with thigh high stockings and removing top layers and changing outfits as often as time would allow.

They began with an old track – something to get the audience hyped – This Month, Day Ten, and the audience responded with frenetic moshing. Their effort was rewarded with Off The Hook. Throughout the set the band dropped a mix of new and old songs, including Let’s Make Love and Listen To Death From Above, Alala, Give Up and a brilliant rendition of Jenny From the Block. The standout though, was Alcohol. Lovefoxxx dove into the crowd and surfed over to the bar where she got up and strutted the length like a rock goddess dropped on the set of Coyote Ugly.

Lovefoxxx was charisma embodied. Always engaging, her banter ranged from cheering her drummer to get his shirt off, to being an old lady for drinking white wine, to being the most humiliated she’s ever been when she changed into an imitation of a Britney nude-with-sparkly-spider-web-body-suit. The comparison she made between it and the feeling of poop all over her body elicited a round of applause. Even dressed as super-slut-Brit, she was sexy as hell. Throughout the night, she made several sweeps of the crowd on her back with her limbs akimbo. Her energy levels were that of an ADHD kids on mega amounts of speed. She was beyond impressive.

It’s hard to compare CSS playing live to their records. In a live space, their dirty bass and heavy drums are more ‘rock’, with fewer pop and electro elements. But the catchy, slightly Spanglish-ised lyrics remain infectious.

There is no doubt that the fun the band have creates an atmosphere that would be impossible to ignore. Even the normally static, uber-collected dudes in nothing-but-black had their heads nodding along. In the intimate setting of OAF, CSS proved they have what it takes to make a party feel bigger and funner than anywhere else on earth.