Psych-indie-grunge-punk outfit Wunderhorse stunned Brooklyn at their highly anticipated gig in the 150-cap theater at Union Pool in Williamsburg.

Stream: ‘Midas’ – Wunderhorse

The Back Room at Union Pool, part of a former pest control and swimming pool supply building turned performance space, is so tiny it has no green room, forcing music acts to await their stage time on a slim rickety terrace in the rear-house rafters.

Which is exactly what singer Jacob Slater and guitarist Harry Fowler of Wunderhorse did on Sept. 11, watching as their audience filed in below them and pressed up against the stage. Sitting on a battered leather couch next to the sound board, Slater puffed intently from a vocal steamer, ostensibly treating a beat-up throat; later, the poor guy croaked into the mic that he was “sick as a dog.”

Perhaps it’s that pervasive touring fatigue that hits international bands when they begin touring America, often in vans, sleeping very little, as-yet-unhardened to the vast distances one must travel to hit even a few East Coast cities. The four-piece had been in Chicago earlier in the week and were headed to Philadelphia for the next gig surrounding their new album, Midas, which came out Aug. 30.

Though the set was a short 10 songs and lacked their crowd-pleasing screamer “July” – likely a smart choice to protect Slater’s pipes – Wunderhorse did their job and did it quite, quite well. With a click of his silvered fingers Slater banged out the opening riff of album title track “Midas” and the room whooped with delight, from the middle-aged dudes and boomers who took the train in from Jersey to the young stalwart fan of the Dead Pretties who flew in from Seattle.

Guitarist Fowler, who Slater has praised as bringing a new creativity to what started as a solo project, was a star of the evening, his understated playing expressing the great power of tension and release. This band are not the shredding type; rather, the reverb-soaked wail of the bridge on “Cathedrals,” the crunchy, swingy solo on “Aeroplane,” and the soaring wall of sound on show-closer “Superman” give the head-nodding affirmation that as rough and ready as this band is, they do think through things, at least the important things.

Someone wryly yelled a request for Billie Eilish’s “Lunch,” which the band covered in a tongue-in-cheek version on a BBC radio show. The frontman chuckled and joked that Billie told him she doesn’t like their version. It’s hard to imagine the subversive pop star disliking their cover – as different as their music is, they at least share the same kernel of tormented seediness so present in Eilish’s early work.

Slater sounded great despite the frustration of being ill, but after his last note in “Aeroplane” he promptly dropped his instrument and disappeared through the back curtain, followed soon after by the other three as Slater’s Fender lay screaming on the stage.

They left the space with that distinct feeling hanging in the air, of hype that actually delivers, everyone glancing at each other with a small smile, fairly sure we’d just seen a band on the cusp, right before they take over the world. That takeover stops at New York’s The Bowery Ballroom in January, so get yer tickets for the next big thing!

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