Cerys Matthews Leads Catatonia in Uplifting, Genuine Concert

Singer Cerys Matthews wants you to have a good time. And on stage Wednesday at the Troubadour, she and her band Catatonia looked about as comfortable and festive as if they were performing their rich folk-pop to a crowd of family and friends.

The quintet from Cardiff, Wales, was making its Los Angeles debut, fresh from scoring several hit singles in Britain off its album “International Velvet.” Matthews set her husky vocals across the band’s seductive wall of sound, which occasionally offers a harder edge than the inscrutable folk-rock of Glasgow’s acclaimed Belle & Sebastian.

She opened the one-hour performance by singing the album’s title song in Welsh, and later found a driving rock sound within the farcical “I Am the Mob.” On the clever “Mulder and Scully,” the band explored confounding mixed emotions over an impending relationship that the song suggests could be a case for “The X-Files.”

For the dreamy folk of “Johnny Come Lately,” Matthews picked up an acoustic guitar and sang at a softer, higher pitch, at times drifting close to the sound of Victoria Williams. Not all of Catatonia’s songs were up to that memorable standard, but the group’s performance was never less than genuine and uplifting.

By contrast, sneering opening act Gwen Mars was at its best only when the trio occasionally allowed a melody to guide itself out of a stale glam-goth din.