Athens’ Twin Tigers fall somewhere on the musical spectrum between drone and shoegaze and electro-pop — depending on the song, and depending on the spot in the song. There’s a lyricism to frontman Matthew Rain’s raspy, repeated lyrics that moves them out of the drone category, but enough fondness for noise, for shambling diversions into wailing guitars, that I could never describe them straight up as an electronic pop group.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect from their live set — their album is complex and multi-layered, and it’s not always easy to replicate that in a show. They managed, though, and they managed well. Rain is obviously the centerpiece of the band, spinning in circles and hunching fiercely over his guitar as he throws out the textured, reverb-heavy guitar lines, taking up more space on the stage than any of his bandmates. Aimee Morris, besides playing one of the most beautiful Rickenbacker basses I’ve ever seen, rounds out Rain’s desperate vocals and holds down the low end with the current drummer, whose name I didn’t catch; I expected the drumming to come through stronger live than it does on the album, but somehow the work manages to be understated and unassuming without disappearing behind the wall of guitars.

And Forrest Hall pulls it all together; he’s one of the best guitarists I’ve watched in a long time. It was a really enjoyable set, and while I’m struggling to put together why it was so good, it just was. They play up here pretty often, and I’ll be excited to go out to see (and shoot) them again.

Chapel Hill’s Lake Inferior opened; I think I might have caught a tiny chunk of one of their sets about 18 months ago, but I’m not sure. They aren’t quite my cup of tea — too much of a tendency towards unnecessary feedback in their songs; they literally made my fillings rattle at several points — and the mix in the half-empty 506 was bone-shakingly loud (not always a good thing) but holy cow, y’all, their songs are all unpinned by some of the most interesting, complex drumming I’ve heard in a long time, here there or anywhere. That alone is worth seeing again, for me.