The songs off Ratatat's recent album feel like tracks that could be unleashed in a live setting, full of thick beats, soaring slide guitar riffs, and slithering synth lines--and no meddling vocalist to get in the way.

Ratatat

In a scorching performance in San Francisco last night, the leash certainly came off.

The duo of Mike Stroud and Evan "E*vax" Mast ripped through a 45-minute set of deeply layered instrumental jams that was equal parts soaring garage rock and downright funky grooves--the porn soundtrack for the punk rock set.

Opening at Mezzanine in San Francisco for Omaha, Nebraska-based electro-clash outfit the Faint, Stroud and Mast blasted through tracks that are hard to categorize but easy to love. A touring guitarist for Dashboard Confessional, Stroud is terribly inventive, unafraid to move from hair-metal riffs to sinewy funk licks in the same track.

Highlights included the deceivingly danceable "Lex," the breezy "Wildcat," which came complete with its primal "Rarrrr!" samples, and the bottom-heavy funk of "Loud Pipes." But its less bombastic tracks like "Swisha," where the pair's classical influences shone through, revealed Ratatat as a band on the rise.

Stroud and Mast have said they play instrumental music largely because neither of them can sing. In doing so with such ease, skill, and bravado--the new album is dubbed Classics--the mic stand can remain unattended.