When Los Angeles’ Wand struck their most thrilling, insistent seam on Tuesday, the sweaty Green Door Store felt like it might collapse.

The trouble was, these moments of white-knuckle garage rock came all-too few and far between.

It seemed even the four-piece themselves didn’t know when they were onto a good thing – swiftly deviating back into meandering, overlong and ultimately pointless dirges that their bassist seemed not to know or care much about.

Singer/guitarist Cory Hanson was a compelling watch though, flitting between thrashing at his instrument and ignoring it completely.

But even he wasn’t focussed, usually letting his canny melodies slip through his fingers.

A cover of The Doors’ The End smack bang in the middle of the set, taking the pace down to a snail’s crawl as if only to illustrate the breakneck speed of the brief original that followed, highlighted further Wand’s lack of direction.

When they played tightest and loudest, they were a worthy addition to the current US garage-psych vanguard.

But at other times, the evening had the feel of being trapped in a badly ventilated practice room with a band who were still tentatively finding their feet.

Three stars