POP MUSIC REVIEW : Portishead: Enter the Real Moody Blues

England’s Portishead is pop music’s answer to film noir .

The Bristol-based group delivers deeply atmospheric music powered by unspoken, passing moods and the aural equivalent of sideway glances. Though the band’s work has recently been pegged “trip hop”--a combination of hip-hop and hallucinatory-style ambience--the term seems as clumsy and inaccurate as calling Nirvana bubblegum pop.

Its surreal fusion of far-flung samples, minimal guitar and Beth Gibbons’ dark, jazz-tinged vocals on its 1994 debut “Dummy” weave a sort of sonic mystery that begs to be unraveled. People responded--its debut hit No. 1 on alternative charts and its eerie single, “Sour Times (Nobody Loves Me),” even infiltrated commercial radio. This kind of recognition is rare for a band subtle in both execution and approach.

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A successful live performance from this kind of act is even rarer. Atmospheric music often won’t translate in a live setting, unless perhaps in a post-rave chill-out room, and typically comes off like a flubbed scientific experiment.

But Portishead’s Sunday show at the Hollywood American Legion Hall, its first in the United States and just its third concert appearance overall, added even more dimension and facets to the band’s sound. The core of Gibbons, turntable manipulator Geoff Barrow and guitarist Adrian Utley, joined by a drummer, bassist and keyboard player, delivered fleeting yet velvety imagery for both the mind and senses--falling somewhere between the spacey ambient lines of the Orb and the more rock-oriented psychedelia of Mazzy Star.

Gibbons sang in delicate and yet dark tones while hanging over the microphone with a lit cigarette. The spare guitar would sound like backdrop for a spaghetti Western, then mutate into musty, Old World melodies of Eastern European descent.

The setting fit the music: The old hall--the former site of the participatory play “Tamara”--is ornate and full of many tiny nooks and rooms to explore.

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Early electrical problems that delayed the show’s start actually helped accent the ambience, as a planned elaborate lighting setup was replaced by a singular blue light that seemed custom-made for Portishead’s music.

Barrow worked the turntables, pulling everything from some sort of football chant to military beats to droning white noise from various sources, complemented by eerie, wavering keyboard whistles. All of Portishead’s disparate elements flowed in a wide-open set.

Portishead is up there with early Pink Floyd in the mood-setting department, and most amazingly, does it with a timeless, savvy grace.

* Portishead plays another sold-out show tonight at 8 at the Hollywood American Legion Hall, 2035 N. Highland Ave . , (213) 960-2035.