British visitors, with buzz

Whether it was the rain, the early set times or the bands’ low profile outside their native England, U.K. “it” bands the Noisettes and Mystery Jets drew an uninspiringly small crowd to the Troubadour on Monday, but that didn’t stop either group from performing as if the place were an arena packed with screaming fans.

The Noisettes, a visually mismatched, funk-rock trio with a Yeti-like drummer, skeletal guitarist and mesmerizing singer, came across as a highly combustible human chemistry experiment. Drummer Jamie Morrison played as if he’d been hibernating all winter and needed to shake out his limbs; he was beating his kit so ferociously that drum pieces kept crashing to the floor. While Dan Smith was so gaunt he seemed to strain under the weight of his electric guitar, vocal mega-talent Shingai Shoniwa was so all over the stage, you’d think she had mainlined about 12 espressos.

Frantic, disjointed, theatrical and highly entertaining, the brief performance by the group, whose debut album is due in August, left one wondering -- in a good way -- “What the hell just happened?”

The Mystery Jets, a five-piece that took the stage in absentia, played a cacophonous chant over the P.A. system for at least a minute before descending on a stage so packed with equipment it looked like a junkyard.

The sink was missing, but a kitchen pot was taped upside down to a bar stool and a garbage pail lid hung like a cymbal center stage -- rounding out the keyboard and other percussive gear played by lead singer Blaine Harrison. Like Harrison, the other four members of the psych-pop group are 20 (except for Harrison’s dad, Henry), and they all sing. In fact, they sing with the sort of harmonic gusto normally reserved for closing time at the local pub. Their sound was so dense and unruly it was unclear sometimes whether they were all playing the same song, but their energy was undeniable.