Dios Malos as cheeky alternative to Kicks

Eccentric pop is all the rage, so it wasn’t surprising that Thursday’s capacity crowd at the Troubadour in West Hollywood soaked up every offbeat note by Brooklyn’s French Kicks and Southern California’s own Dios Malos. More unexpectedly, the East Coast headliners were musically upstaged by their West Coast support.

Both groups are signed to Brooklyn-based indie StarTime International, but that’s where the similarities end. The more experienced French Kicks performed their droning, moody, new wave-flavored rock with more flair, especially since lanky, strangely charismatic vocalist Nick Stumpf has freed himself from the drum kit he formerly sang behind.

But the band’s blend of punk, garage and new wave has gotten artier -- complete with a cover of New Order’s “Regret” -- and that put an unwelcome cooler sheen on a sound that once promised more heat.

The hourlong set, drawn mostly from 2002’s “One Time Bells” and last year’s “The Trial of the Century,” lacked the breakneck pace and grit of earlier appearances, although the Kicks adeptly created trebly tension with guitars, keyboards and percussion. But the release was fleeting, in such numbers as “One More Time” and “Only So Long,” and the songs proved undistinguished.

Born in Hawthorne like the Beach Boys and clearly having drunk some of the same water, Dios Malos fits well into L.A.’s tradition of cheeky, oddball tunesmithery, mixing the requisite ‘60s pop sensibility with more modern flavors such as Radiohead. The quartet, which recently changed its name from simply Dios after a legal challenge by rocker Ronnie James Dio, echoed the wry humor and spry melodies of local treasures the Negro Problem with such numbers as “You Got Me All Wrong.”

Whatever the band is called, fans of sprawling, cerebral pop will want to hear more.