The forces of angst-ridden “emo” rock were vanquished at the NME Awards tonight as Arctic Monkeys and Muse led a wave of British winners at the music bible’s booze-sodden ceremony.

Rehab clinics were emptied and feuds set aside as rock’s hardest-living icons poured into the Hammersmith Palais for an evening of “class A” debauchery.

Kate Moss presented reformed drug addicts Primal Scream with a lifetime achievement award. Dundee rockers The View took the Best Track prize before a court appearance on a cocaine possession charge set for Friday morning.

The guest list accomodated both Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn, who settled a 12-year feud after the Oasis songwriter admitted that the Blur star’s new album, The Good, The Bad and The Queen, contained some “nice passages”.

Battle lines were drawn between British indie bands and My Chemical Romance, black-clad leaders of the American “emo” scene whose songs about cancer and adolescent pain were rewarded with four nominations.

But NME readers stuck by Arctic Monkeys, the Sheffield group whose acerbic tales of northern street life topped the charts, breaking sales records last year.

They snubbed the industry’s Brit Awards last month but accepted an invitation to pick up the NME’s Best Album - presented by Girls Aloud - and Music DVD honours. The second Arctic Monkeys album, released next month, will be the most closely scrutinised of the year.

Oasis, kings of anthemic stadium rock for more than a decade, saw their crown passed to Muse, the Devon trio, who won Best British Band.

Led by Matt Bellamy, Muse’s brand of symphonic rock has cracked the US top ten and the band will play two sold-out nights at Wembley Stadium in June.

NME spent the past year lauding the “new rave” scene, a combination of guitar-rock and dance beats inspired by the sounds and styles of early 90s outdoor rave events.

Klaxons, leaders of the scene, whose gigs are attended by hordes of glowstick-waving teens, took the Best New Band prize, beating The Kooks.

The John Peel award for musical innovation went to Enter Shikari, a dance-metal group from St Albans, Herts, who have turned down million-pound offers from record companies.

The quartet built a huge fanbase through relentless touring and digital downloads but release songs through their own record label in order to retain control over song copyrights.

Female performers were excluded from the winners “boys club”. But the biggest buzz at the event surrounded not Kate Moss but Beth Ditto, the 15 stone singer who describes herself as a “fat queer feminist”.

The lead singer of Oregon punk-funk band The Gossip, Ditto was named the NME’s Cool Icon and is now becoming a mainstream star after scoring a hit with the song Standing In The Way of Control, an attack on Republican opposition to gay marriages.

Jarvis Cocker invited Ditto to perform a duet of the Heaven 17 hit Temptation at the awards. But Ditto, who shuns drugs, was not impressed that Moss won the Sexiest Female vote.

“It’s not the New Model Express,” she said. “I think the world needs positive influences. You have to wonder how she feels about her life and size.”

Kaiser Chiefs, The Killers and Best Live Act winners Kasabian also performed at the awards. The guest list included Pete Doherty, Shaun Ryder, the Happy Mondays singer who claims to have finally kicked hard drugs and Mick Jones of the Clash.

Primal Scream closed the awards with a performance of The Clash’s White Man In Hammersmith Palais - a tribute to the famous venue which will be demolished to make way for new office blocks and a restaurant.

*NME Awards, Channel 4, 11:40pm Friday

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