Strobe’s a distraction. Eyes tight shut. Throat dry, beer warm. But none of it matters; it’s tolerable, this time out, this time around. Another week, another Meet Me In St Louis show. These guys – friends second, admired musicians first – are under my skin, in my ears and wriggling at the tips of my fingers. I always come along. Been here, done that. But not quite like this.

Variations On Swing is working its way into the popular press, the much-anticipated (by those already dirtied by pressing their ear so close to this country’s underground) debut album earning plaudits aplenty. It makes good on potential evident in its makers’ five-track EP of last year (review here), firming up the few failings in the production department and tightening what was an already tautly technical approach to rock writing. Live, the band have been erratic – thumbs-up one night, so-so the next, the territory trodden absolutely that of the hard-touring sort. Never quitters, they’ve rolled on, and now it makes the clearest sense.

Practice, they say, can make perfect. Right now – this minute – Meet Me In St Louis could well be the most perfect band of their chosen ilk in the country.

And never has this been more apparent, more glaringly obviously wonderfully evident (even under that fucking-shut-it-off strobe), than tonight at a busy Barfly. Supports forgotten as soon as the five-piece take the stage, MMISL are in imperious form; cobwebs clouding memories of past successes blasted asunder, they deliver an album-previewing set that doesn’t so much whet the appetite as set the taste buds on electric edge. Visually arresting – a pair of pirouetting central protagonists flanked by dual guitarists finger-picking and wrist twisting themselves into an intentional muddle; a drummer taking his sole tom to town, getting more from the simplest of kits than any stadium rocker could tens of components – the band’s sonic assault is more venomous than ever. An urge to bust for home earlier than usual, triggered by a remembering of new south-of-the-river lodgings, is suppressed; there’s no place else to be, and Sonic Youth are up the road.

‘Ein Zwei Drei Hasselhoff’ is a fan favourite in the making – Hell Is For Heroes acolytes, prepare to be mesmerised by it when MMISL support in November – and forthcoming single ‘All We Need Is A Little Energon And A Lot Of Luck’ already has the hardcore within the palm of its proverbial hand (bonus points for the Transformers nod, obviously). These two picks of the night, though, are far from the upper limit of what this quintet can offer – ‘Right This Way You Maverick Renegade’ might have a shoot-yrself-int-foot title, but its scattershot guitar bleeps and sudden melodic shifts will turn even the most studied musician into a dribbling wreck of appreciation and envy.

Of course, when you’re busy smiling like a loon and dancing on the spot like you’ve a bomb on board (and stopping that jerk-twitch-tapping will cave this whole place in), specifics are lost by the wayside. Only impressions remain, framed by red-eye and clapping hands. And this impression: the best yet. What’s frightening is that, even at this point, you can leave a MMISL show with the feeling they’ve still more to give; that there’s a back-up tank somewhere, full of rocket fuel enough to send these boys into the stratosphere. Widdly guitars and befuddling breakdowns all the way home, ears singing an echo of the night’s best gig in town…

Photograph courtesy of Dan Griffiths. Thanks Dan!