I’m not sure how they achieved it, but Los Angeles troubadour Jeremy Jay and his band managed to come off as focused and disengaged at the same time. None of the band members ever really looked at the audience, and Jay’s carefully bent right leg yelled hipster ennui at first glance, yet the band played with fierce earnestness.
The set was dominated by material from their recently recorded and as-yet-unreleased new album. It’s more aggressive than earlier recordings (at least live), and the post-punk vigor rarely lets up; even their icy synths sounded forceful. The intensity seemed appropriate on the tiny, red light-bathed stage in Zum Teufel (“to the devil”), a goth'd-out little bar on the outskirts of Heidelberg, though the more sedate tunes from their stellar Slow Dance LP would have lent the set some needed variation. New song “Just Dial My Number” got the crowd bobbing with its infectiously meandering lead guitar line and the band sounded exceedingly tight as they plunged into “We Were There,” with its waves of bright synthesizer and Jay’s lonely, yet confident, vocals.
When the performance ended abruptly after less than 40 minutes due its late start and the venue’s noise ordinance cut-off time, I still didn’t have a clear idea of what to think of the set. The bass bounced spryly, Jay’s croon and keen knack for melody were in good form, and the band’s shimmy toward Pixies territory is a great shift. Still, for some reason the show came off like it was building to something great, but later.