Promise Ring Powers Through Astringent Tunes

When the members of the Promise Ring are onstage, they transcend their own nerdy selves with their over-the-top brand of nerdiness. It’s almost as if, given their guitars and a big crowd, they can stop being introverts for just a little while, and hold forth on their emotional neuroses with a lusty abandon.

At the El Rey on Friday, the Wisconsin quartet used both the headlong rush of pop riffage and drowsy three-chord ballads to articulate its skewed elliptical lyricism, shooting little poisoned darts of recrimination in the group’s repertoire, such as “I’m losing my voice talking to you about talking to you.”

The Promise Ring’s astringent tunefulness draws from any number of musical precedents, from the Undertones and Husker Du to Weezer. The band’s lead singer and guitarist, Davey vonBohlen, had the aw-shucks disposition of a young Ron Howard; whenever the band cranked into overdrive, his wispy, hangdog voice pleaded for mercy while his right hand pounded out choppy counterpoint to guitarist Jason Gnewikow’s sturdy melodies. As a power pop band, the Promise Ring was convincingly energized, but it found its true comfort zone in the self-pitying pathos of its laments. There, VonBohlen was free to drown in his own metaphoric sea of tears, desperately seeking some solace in the wake of love’s abandonment.