Mercury Rev Delivers Boundless Adventure

The best rock music is often an exercise in extremes. That’s true enough for Mercury Rev, an exceptional live band that somehow balances madness and clarity, melody and dread, all in an atmosphere as intense as it is vulnerable.

On stage is where the band’s many parts fully ignite. At the Troubadour on Monday, Mercury Rev’s six players crafted layers of sound that compared favorably to Radiohead in emotion and complexity, but with an Appalachian flavor of their own.

Mercury Rev’s more chaotic tendencies have been significantly smoothed over since the band’s earliest days in Buffalo, N.Y., in the late ‘80s. The post-punk experimentalism remains, but with roots that probe deeper, incorporating raw folk influences and the occasional Beatles-like melody.

On Monday, singer-guitarist Jonathan Donahue was a deeply emotional frontman, both forlorn and hopeful, performing songs from the band’s new album, “All Is Dream.”

His soft whine may sound more like Neil Young’s all the time, but Donahue had a powerful presence, mingling romantic words with darker themes.

Many of the night’s best moments came during material culled from 1998’s “Deserter’s Songs” album. The new collection is often more understated than that, but the band continues to make consistently exciting and challenging music, including the passionate, driving “You’re My Queen.”

Donahue said little between songs, leaving nothing to break the ethereal mood. Yet there was no mistaking the expressions of real joy visible on the band’s faces.

Longevity has yet to mean a big audience for Mercury Rev, but while the sold-out crowd at the Troubadour was relatively small, the music seemed limitless.