Caught Live: Miracle Fortress @ Crawdaddy, Dublin

It’s been a long wait for a second album from Miracle Fortress. The band, essentially a vehicle for Montreal-based songwriter Graham Van Pelt, was shortlisted for Canada’s Polaris Music Prize on the back of their excellent 2007 debut Five Roses, and it's taken four years for a follow-up – the similarly impressive Was I The Wave?, which has just been released on this side of The Atlantic through Republic of Music – to appear.

By comparison, this second full-length is notably more beat-driven than its often dreamy and summery predecessor; much like his compatriot Dan Snaith and the evolution of his Caribou project, Van Pelt has in recent years made a deliberate move away from sunny psychedelia and towards the dancefloor. The reference points to be found in Miracle Fortress' fresh material have changed accordingly: some of the tracks on Was I The Wave? carry the same clean, polished synth-pop sheen that compatriots (and recent tourmates) Junior Boys have built a career on honing, and in a live setting the tight, anxious grooves of these new tunes sometimes hark back to eighties giants Depeche Mode and Talking Heads – the latter perception aided by Van Pelt’s endearingly nerdy, nervous disposition, which puts this observer in mind of David Byrne.

What a treat, then, to discover that the accompanying live show is every bit as meticulously prepared as the album’s carefully layered compositions. The problem faced by many one-person projects – and, indeed, by any performers that rely heavily on electronics – is that the dynamism of the music is frequently lost onstage, resulting in the performance coming across as fatally static; the effect can be one of looking on as someone plays along on a laptop. Van Pelt sidesteps this problem in a couple of ways: firstly, by having drummer Greg Napier expertly bash along with the digital beats that underpin the new material, which adds some much-needed energy to the show; and secondly, by looping his guitar lines and using a bank of samplers and drum pads – meaning that he is effectively playing electronic instruments in real time, as opposed to simply pressing play on a backing track. It certainly helps that he has a way with a melody, as well as an obvious love for shimmery electronic textures, all of which combines to make his songs hover in a kind of floating, ecstatic mood – a very lovely end result indeed.

Van Pelt proclaims himself delighted to be back in Dublin, which he dubiously labels “the best city in the world”. Cynics to a man, tonight's audience are rightly sceptical of such talk (“I bet that’s what you tell all the girls”, the wag next to me mutters), but as the evening progresses his dedication to his songs shines through, and it soon becomes obvious that his enthusiasm is genuine. Rather unsurprisingly, the set is frontloaded with new material, of which the moody 'Tracers' and new single 'Miscalculations' stand out. The overall impression is of a much more sharp and focused project than listeners familiar only with Five Roses might expect, and it's a feeling that's reinforced by the brevity of the show (forty-five minutes tops). On a Sunday night, however, nobody's really complaining, and the audience reaction at the end leaves no doubt that Van Pelt has made his point.

Check out a selection of Sasha Bond's photos from Sunday night's show at Crawdaddy over here.