Pop Reviews : Verlaines Hit Some Roadblocks at Whisky

Thank goodness for audiences that talk instead of paying attention to the show. The wayward chords and weak singing that sometimes mar the Verlaines’ recorded work proved far less distracting when the New Zealand band performed Thursday at the Whisky, as the noise of the crowded club--along with frontman Graeme Downes’ vigorous guitar playing--muffled most of the discordant moments.

In concert, the trio’s obvious strengths took center stage. There’s little more immediately affecting than the spare, heavy sound of a small group of musicians familiar with each other and their instruments, and the Verlaines worked the intimacy to their advantage.

But Downes is perhaps too self-conscious a composer. A scholar of 19th-Century music (the group’s name comes from 19th-Century “musical” poet Paul, not proto-21st-Century guitarist Tom), he twists chords into unnatural progressions, interesting from an academic perspective but less satisfying to the average pop music fan. Case in point: “Tremble,” the single from the band’s latest album, “Ready to Fly,” which flowed smoothly until hitting a roadblock of a jarring minor chord, sure to stop any foot tapping.

If the Verlaines are hindered by their fixation with the 19th Century, it’s the 1970s that hold back opener Yo La Tengo. The New Jersey trio delivered a mostly enjoyable set of smart songs with the ultimately wearying intensity of a circa-1977 band that had been listening to nothing but the Velvet Underground for the last decade and the Sex Pistols for the last month.