Thanks to the presence of JJ72, T.T. the Bear’s Place felt more like a cozy neighborhood pub in Dublin than a cozy club in Cambridge a week ago Wednesday. An abnormally large number of Irish accents could be heard peppering conversations before the brief middle set from the Emerald Isle’s latest musical export. Such support isn’t surprising: barely legal in this country but self-assured enough to have opened for U2, JJ72 specialize in the kind of soulful, earnest rock music UK bands like Coldplay and Travis have had great success with in 2001. And though their debut didn’t reach these shores till September, JJ72 (Lakota/Columbia) has been celebrated overseas since August of last year.

The packed crowd at T.T.’s obviously expected to hear equally great things from the trio live — but arriving on stage with barely a word to the audience, JJ72 simply opened with one of their biggest singles, "Snow," and they had little to say throughout the next nine songs. The uneven nature of their set made me wonder whether this reticence was due to shyness, arrogance, or just sheer boredom. Bassist Hilary Woods, vamped out in P.J. Harvey–worthy smoky eye make-up, looked as if she wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else. And though a number of their songs packed a heavier punch live than on the more polished and muted disc, the band’s evident sense of apathy often killed this energy.

That was certainly the case with a solo acoustic offering by blond, spiky-haired vocalist Mark Greaney. Ranging from raw-throated bellowing to gender-bending falsetto, Greaney’s style is, I admit, an acquired taste. But following the shredding, New Order–like choppy riffs of "Algeria" and a pounding, feedback-intense "Surrender," he killed any momentum with warbling best described as that of a trembling tree frog. A chiming, rich "Undercover Angel" followed this debacle, but the show was repeatedly dogged by such energy-sapping interludes.

Which is a shame, because when the band connected both within themselves and with the crowd, they were dynamic. A spunky, melodic "October Swimmer" got people jumping and dancing; an anthemic "Oxygen" embodied an us-versus-the-world spirit. Even the closer, a strangely fragmented "Bumble Bee" that toggled between echoing restraint and shards of arena-rock bombast, delivered a much-needed burst of abrupt but welcome noise.