The perfect setting for these cult American post-rockers' eerie guitar soundscapes would be the closing sequence of Apocalypse Now. Sadly, the Doors got there 20 years ago. Still, the sheer surrealism of the venue, a former working men's club, makes it equally suitable for avant garde music. The vibe is somewhere between a debauched bingo hall and a bombed-out air raid shelter. A shame then, that former Slint/Tortoise man David Pajo's band resolutely refuse to rise to the full house.

The warning signs are on the stage, where there are no microphones, so there are no "hellos" or "goodbyes". Instead, Pajo and bandmates shuffle on and stare intently at each other's playing. A few people are awestruck, others chatter uneasily. God help us if somebody coughs.

The fragile, painstaking nature of Papa M's instrumentals demand a level of interaction between musicians far beyond that of a regular rock band, but surely that makes it all the more important to involve the crowd. With his Bruce Lee/assassin's good looks, Pajo would make a fine anti-hero rock star. But there's no movement, no drama, no acknowledgement that an audience exists. Instead, we're left to make sense of studious but often directionless music that scarcely approaches the more magical moments of their Live From a Shark Cage album. As a military drum explosion briefly threatens to interrupt the monotony, I find myself wondering whether the album's more intricate Fripp & Eno-type constructions are impossible to perform. The answer arrives as the band slope off, leaving their superior recordings to waft into the darkness. Appropriately, it's the highlight of the night.