Jordan Kleinman on April 1st, 2016

1

Longtime fans of White Denim know that whatever intensity the Austin rockers display on their albums will increase by a couple orders of magnitude when the songs are played live.

That was the case Thursday night at the Teragram Ballroom, where the band, playing with an expanded lineup but without guitarist Austin Jenkins and founding drummer Joshua Block (who now play with Leon Bridges), ripped through a genre- and catalogue-spanning show behind their new full-length “Stiff.”

||| Photos by Michelle Shiers

It was the first of two sold-out nights at the Teragram, but for all the hype it could have been a backyard party — in characteristic humble fashion, the band — James Petralli, Steve Terebecki, Jonathan Horne and Jeff Olson, along with touring keyboardist Mike St. Clair — were onstage themselves toying with pedals and cables right up to the moment they kicked off their set with “Real Deal Momma.”

They blew straight into the new album’s second single, “Ha Ha Ha Ha (Yeah),” with great instrumental interplay between guitarist Horne and Sam Cohen (who opened the show and joined White Denim for two songs), with the occasional flugelhorn chiming in courtesy of St. Clair.

A few songs later, the band reached back in the catalog to 2011’s “D” and burst into an-ever-so-groovy jam of “River to Consider,” which felt as heavy as it could have, given the new instrumentation. They followed with the new album’s lead track, “Had 2 Know (Personal).”

The show then shifted moods, as the quintet got funky, seductive and mysterious for the strangely titled “Sex Prayer” (from 2009’s “Fits”) and, after a speedy buildup, got chill with the new song “(I’m the One) Big Big Fun.”

As is typical, the live airing of White Denim’s tunes don’t adhere to the the structure of the recordings, and the transitions between songs are often breakneck. Case in point: Heads shook during the new album’s first single “Right into Holda You (I’m Psycho)” — if only there were a way to dance to the frenetic progressions without seizure — before White Denim transitioned to the arpeggio-heavy 2011’s “Anvil Everything.” Packing synths in the low-end, the song took new form from past live performances. Heavier and more majestic, the almost-bossa nova section was tear-inducing when the white noise was worked in and the structure seemed to become freeform. And just as soon as it came, frontman Petralli turned things around and the crowd ran in place to “I start to run.”

After taking a moment to fix some distracting buzz from the keyboard section, the band tore into “Bess St.,” from “D,” and perfectly segued into “Shake Shake Shake,” which got a bit spacey, a bit noisy, and really rowdy. They cooled things down for the last song of the set, “Company,” a deep cut from their 2011 EP “Takes Place in Your Work Space.” Giving the audience a moment to catch a collective breath and enjoy the Teragram’s well-pumped AC, the band finished their set with a long jam. And after two minutes off-stage, they returned with Cohen to cover “Peg” from Steely Dan.

Cohen and his band opened the night with their funky, upbeat Southern rock. They had heads nodding and had the geography been different, boots would have been stomping. Like the headliners, Cohen and his crew make good use of clever time signatures and mini-jams.

White Denim reprises the show tonight at the Teragram; it’s sold out.