Polica, Live at Whelan's, Dublin

On the evening Yo La Tengo are forced cancel a Vicar St. show because of the Arctic conditions, Poliça rock up at Whelan’s straight from a choppy ferry-crossing, looking rather the worse for wear from their ordeal. Elsewhere on their European tour – which included a sell-out at London’s mid tier-ish Shepherd’s Bush Empire – the Minnesota four-piece have been placing a firm accent of theatricality, singer Channy Leaneagh dressing head to toe in black, the better to emphasise the tragic cast of the band’s music.

Tonight, they mooch on in denim and slacks, visibly traumatised by their rush across the Irish Sea and have to request that the lights be dimmed so as to minimise the nausea among twin drummers Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu. Fortunately, the exhaustion does not seep into their performance. If anything, they seem pumped after their eleventh hour dash to Dublin. In skirt and sneakers, her hair cropped severely, front-woman Leaneagh sways sadly as the wistful beats to ‘The Maker’ kick in. Chronicling Leaneagh’s divorce from musician Alexei Casselle (with whom she co-fronted Minneapolis alt. folkies Roma Di Luna), Poliça’s Give You The Ghost was a beautiful, eerie debut, so delicate you worry that, on the road, it might lose some of its exquisite subtlety. In fact, in the flesh the songs take on even greater emotional force. Consisting of just two percussionists, bassist Chris Bierden and the singer, ‘Dark Star’ and ‘I See My Mother’ are at once stripped down and urgently lush, woozy mini-symphonies that seem to stretch and warp in real time. Shaking her head softly, Leaneagh is palpably channelling a deep pain, although, between tracks, she is chipper and modest. Padded out with some intriguing new songs, the set concludes with the gently frazzled one-two of ‘Wandering Star’ and ‘Amongster’, numb odes to loss that locate the bliss point between melancholy and catharsis. “Small venues are always the best shows,” Christopherson tweets immediately afterwards. On tonight’s evidence, who could disagree?