Ultrasound visions of Guillemots

It’s always rewarding to witness the birth of an exciting new band, but in many ways it’s even more fascinating to get a glimpse into a promising young group’s actual gestation period.

That was the feeling Thursday at the Roxy in West Hollywood at the performance by Guillemots, the London-based quartet that’s been generating an excitement level akin to what has surrounded the Arctic Monkeys.

This foursome fronted by classically trained keyboardist, singer and songwriter Fyfe Dangerfield already offers a lot worth admiring in its fusion of fetching melodic pop with freewheeling musical experimentalism. But it was abundantly evident Thursday that the band -- which has barely established a beachhead in the U.S. with its 2-month-old EP “From the Cliffs” -- is still feeling its way toward a firm identity, happily torn between its skill at endearing pop songcraft and its desire to steer clear of any limitations of form.

Guillemots’ single “Trains to Brazil” is an utterly charming wide-eyed plea for being cognizant of the wonder of being alive, couched in a marvelous Motown-meets-the-Beach Boys bounciness. Yet compared with a showcase the group did here in March, Dangerfield and his cohorts are already messing with the arrangement as a way of keeping the song fresh for them and for listeners (including Kirsten Dunst and Jake Gyllenhaal in the Roxy audience).

Elsewhere Dangerfield’s exuberant and sweet songs often broke down into a glorious cacophony of noisy free expression, his spacey keyboard sounds jutting against MC Lord Magrao’s sheets of slide guitar effects, drummer Greig Stewart’s out-of-tempo percussive attack and Canadian bassist Aristazabal Hawkes’ jazz-informed explorations. There’s always a danger that such eccentricity will take on a life of its own and become willfully idiosyncratic. But if Guillemots can avoid being seduced by such artful self-indulgence, the group appears to have considerably invigorating times and music ahead.