Tom Vek’s Luck is stuffed full of so much sonic experimentation it pops and crackles - from the unearthly backing chorus of Vek in the background to the angular riffs that form the backbone of his songs. This strangeness is difficult to transfer into a live context though, and tonight at XOYO, he falls a bit… flat. With the bursts of rising keyboard-noise precluding Tom Wolfe-homage, ‘Sherman (Animals in the Jungle)’ single, one could be forgiven for thinking that what follows would be more interesting than a bass and guitar riff.

That’s not to say live Tom Vek is boring Tom Vek. Accompanied by drummer and bassist/guitarist, Vek whips through ‘Green Lights’, ‘Chore’ and ‘C-C’ with the kind of swagger that one would expect from a man who recorded We Have Sound at 22, the best part of a decade a go. There are riff-dischords, drawling vocal repetition, and a technical confidence that is quite a thing. Vek also creates musical motifs rather than song structures, which can often result in the pleasing effect of completely upending his songs. Verses have repeated phrases rattling around, and choruses are at times perversely wordless - a riff or a harmonized ‘woah’ filling the space. At times his material feels like one long series of bridges, codas in between climaxes that lie tantalisingly out of reach.

Tom Vek himself is an interesting creature. Born in Hounslow, he’s a multi-instrumentalist who got picked up by Island after recording his debut in his parents’ garage, a graphic design student who designs his own website and album covers, a guy who recently developed an app to help you see album artwork on your phone, before, quite bizarrely, channeling his efforts into setting up his own shortened URL (vek.to, if you’re interested). After spending his formative years being the ‘underrated’ Tom Vek that people talked about in hushed whispers in bars in Dalston, Vek is now recording in a nice, big studio and enjoying near-universal acclaim.

Whilst material from Luck retains the intelligence and humour that made his first two albums so exciting, many of Vek’s new ideas feel half-formed, and at time even grating. ‘The Girl You Wouldn’t Leave’ is an exercise in annoying your audience - one excruciating line repeated ad nauseum. As well as the fact one would probably suggest leaving it off the live setlist, it really doesn’t take four minutes to make your point, Tom.

That aside, there are still enough classics on the list to keep his audience bouncing. Strange guitar codas that leave you bemused and breathless, the combination of machine and live drum beats that leave you palpitating - it’s easy to remember why those hushed whispers began. As Vek pushes his glasses back on his nose, pauses for breath and then starts jumping up and down to ‘Aroused’ you remember that this man has more powder in his casket than ‘Sherman’ might give him credit for. Let’s hope settling into his thirties doesn’t mean settling.