Parker and Lily, the kitschy-sweet lounge act with a heart of coal, are all about contradictions. Even the two Boston dates that bookended their fall/winter tour in support of their second CD, Here Comes Winter (Manifesto), were an exercise in contrast. The retro-hipster atmosphere at the Milky Way, where they opened the tour in October, suited their savvy neo-lounge style — but alas, they played to an empty room. And if the club’s cave-like acoustics didn’t wholly contradict the creepy carnival dreamscape of their album, the sly subtleties of the music and the dynamic range of the band’s live performance didn’t quite make it through the mix. Conversely, the Chopping Block, the Huntington Avenue hole in the wall where they played their last US show of the season last Saturday, is well-suited to football Sundays and working guys hulking over their beers. But here — against their own expectations, in spite of the laughably dinky PA cabs and the general technical mayhem they encountered at soundcheck — Parker and Lily’s performance was something close to thrilling.

Thrilling is not what leaps to mind on Here Comes Winter. The album’s impact is far more insidious and narcotic, with distant, woozy layers of distorted vintage electronics blending Parker Noon’s romantic monotone and Lily Wolfe’s bubbly melodies into a potent panic-attack cocktail. Live, the music was vigorous and tough, loaded with swervy turns and big, exciting dynamic swells. Accompanied by keyboardist Christina Campanella, Parker and Lily handled cue-loaded arrangements with ease, including whooshes of feedback and stabs of tremolo, simple dance-beat patterns on an old drum machine, and live cymbals. Wolfe, an angel-voiced charmer with a Lily Munster streak and a giant red flower in her hair, played swirly Martin Denny melodies on an Ace Tone organ and a Fender Rhodes; Campanella, a lanky blonde given to sultry glances under her pointy Twiggy lashes, worked the sparkle-top Fender piano bass and Farfisa. The women’s airy, pretty harmonies were a little tentative, but it was nice to make out the words in Noon’s lead vocal.

Meanwhile, Noon, a Tom Waits ringer in a leather jacket held together by duct tape, spat out bits of minimalist poetry like a ’20s crooner on junk, all swoony and chewed up. A musical primitive next to his partner (Wolfe is a classically trained musician), he played his baritone guitar as if he were fighting with it, plucking out parts with aggressive rhythmic intuition.