Alt-J, cool and airy at the Tower

If Great Britain's teens (and America's) were looking to worship boys edgier and brighter-bulbed than One Direction, they found them in the eerie yet balmy psychedelic electronic folk of alt-J, named for an Apple Mac command. They write coolly emotional lyrics about John Hurt and Natalie Portman characters (in French, no less). They're handsome in a boyish, blank-stare sort of way and sound like a blend of Radiohead, Fairport Convention and Tears for Fears. What's not for smart kids to love?

At Friday's show at the Tower, alt-J traded softly spun harmonies, spiderweb arrangements, skittering rhythms and subtly dramatic melodies while a coven of (barely) post-teens seemed jaw-droppingly awed by their soothing, creepy ambience and dazzling, deceptively simple light show. Deceptively simple is a good way to think about the alt-J experience. They fill every quiet melody with busy work. They gleefully muck-up their mid-tempo tunes.

Joe Newman (guitar/lead vocals), Gus Unger-Hamilton (keyboards/vocals), Thom Green (drums) and newish bassist/singer Cameron Knight consistently forged near-soaring melodies with impenetrable lyrics ("Breezeblocks") and an ambient swirl so oxygenated, so rarified airy, it was more Denver than Upper Darby.

Newman's vocals fluttered in chilly midair without ever landing on emotional punctuation as he coursed through the Ice Age soul of "Left Hand Free" and the almost-falsetto heights of "Bloodflood Pt. II." There was mathematic precision to everything: the somber, click-clacking sway of "Hunger of the Pine," the quietly intricate guitar interplay of "Tessellate" - this was nerdy math-pop of the highest order - highlighted by Green's tremblingly complex drumming. Even the French lyrics of "Matilda" sounded more scientific than romantic in alt-J's highly orchestrated context. There was a sense of sameness and a lack of absolute dynamics - of low lows and high highs - throughout. The gently frenetic "Every Other Freckle" was as intense as any other song on the set list - a great thing, but sometimes too much of one good thing.

Surprise opener Mikky Ekko filled the Tower with a sense of epic grandeur similar to alt-J's, but with a sense of warmth and woe to its bold, brisk set.