Parquet Courts @ La Belle Angele, 16 June

A near sell-out La Belle Angele crowd is struggling to make up its mind about Housewives. The London group are flexing their muscles and dealing out some industrial multi-segmented soundscapes, which build from nothing to reach a pulsating groove. They make a bold statement but never deviate from their chosen path. You either bathe to this music or instinctively run a mile from it.

Parquet Courts are capable, when the mood takes them, of being every bit as loud and challenging. The Brooklyn four-piece are so obviously talented that you just know they could tackle any style of their choosing and still land on their feet. This is a group who can dash off the stand-out title track on their recently released third album, the mesmerising Human Performance, in a mid-set lull and not even pause for breath before launching into another number. Lesser bands would announce such a song with fireworks. But then they'll add a seemingly off-the-cuff feedback jam to Dust, an otherwise lo-fi pop gem that sounds like it was rejected from the first Modern Lovers record, and is more than capable of standing on its own two feet. 

Of course, Parquet Courts fans – and there are plenty of die-hards here tonight – already know this band enjoy being wilfully contrary. In an hour-long set with some some brilliant power pop moments, there are at least three occasions when they dissolve into a dreary sludge of riffs before neatly stepping out again.

A PQ gig can be an occasionally maddening experience as a result, but they could never be accused of being boring. It also helps that they have charm in spades. "We told them we didn't want a barrier tonight – now we can't see your beautiful faces," Austin Brown tells us with a grin. Could they have better paced tonight's set to allow more of their impressive back catalogue an airing? Absolutely. But then that wouldn't be a Parquet Courts show.