Del Amitri Crunches Dark Pop Into Gritty Rock

Del Amitri’s knack for blending the jangling sweetness of the Byrds and the Beatles, the crunch of early Rolling Stones, and singer-bassist Justin Currie’s cynical world view made for some satisfying dark pop moments during the band’s El Rey Theatre concert on Sunday.

Drawing from its current release, the lush “Some Other Sucker’s Parade,” and including such older hits as “Roll to Me,” the Scottish quintet casually charmed its fans, while offering the uninitiated nearly 90 minutes of well-crafted, adeptly rendered and stubbornly un-trendy tunes.

However, rather than limning some of the new album’s more distinguishing pop nuances, Currie, guitarist Iain Harvie and the other players mostly just rocked hard. On one hand, the songs lost their polish and became agreeably gritty; on the other, the performance revealed fewer of the eccentric flourishes that make “Sucker’s Parade” so compelling.

These choices downplayed the group’s personality and did not effectively serve its intriguing fusion of melody and bile. The players showed listeners a good time with such standouts as the anti-New Age rocker “Medicine,” the wittily self-deprecating “Not Where It’s At” and the soul-flavored “What I Think She Sees,” but by set’s end, one saw less of the band’s potential and more of its pitfalls.

Opening quartet Dog’s Eye View had far more serious identity problems, serving up 45 minutes of college-style jangle-pop with a generic bar band flavor.