Cornershop Falls Far Short of Album

A head-spinning conflation of three-chord guitar pop and trippy tantric grooves, Cornershop’s new album, “When I Was Born for the 7th Time,” is an exuberant, intoxicating slice of Indo-Western whimsy. Its appeal made the London-based band’s joyless performance at the Hollywood Athletic Club on Wednesday that much more disappointing.

The sluggish pace wasn’t entirely Cornershop’s fault; a 10-minute delay midway though the set, the result of a technical gaffe, didn’t help matters. Nonetheless, the performance packed all the momentum of a slowly deflating balloon.

Frontman Tjinder Singh seemed mildly distracted for the duration of the set and frequently mumbled his vocals out of the side of his mouth, and bandmate Anthony Saffrey never really caught a spark on either guitar or sitar. If it weren’t for Nick Simms’ incessant, animated drumming, the show would have achieved total meltdown in a hurry.

Things did get interesting on the band’s last number, the bouncy “We’re in Yr Corner.” Stretching the song’s minimal chord progression to the limit, Singh would latch on to a phrase and repeat it for long stretches until it took on the hypnotic power of a mantra, while the band churned steadily behind him.

But just when it seemed as if Cornershop might achieve some measure of transcendence, the house lights came on and the show came to an abrupt end, sans encore.