There are not many bands whose live act could not benefit from a spectacular setting. Surely even the bowel-loosening, Juno-award-winning strains of Nickelback could become magical and intoxicating if you saw them in the right place (inside a burning freight car, in a tank full of rabid, bitter chimpanzees, etc). It follows then that when the Dum Dum Girls played with a full view of the New York City night skyline behind them at Cantora Labs‰’ Smartlounge on Thursday at CMJ, mouths frothed, cameras snapped, and people pushed hard to get to the front.

Dee Dee and Jules Dum Dum played lo-fi electric guitars without bass or percussion, stripping down songs both old and new to their bones. The music sounded entirely different without the smoke and mirrors of reverb and distortion that muddle some of their earlier releases. This led to a few revelations:

1. Dee Dee (wearing dark shades, red lips, and a penciled on beauty mark) can really, truly carry a tune. She delivered singsong melodies from new songs like Hold My Hand, Heartbeat and Bedroom Eyes with clamped-jaw intensity and steely precision that added a well-needed bit of spice to so much sugar.

2. Nearly every Dum Dum Girls song finds its greatest strength in a basic, powerfully structured melodic spine. Layered harmonies and tin-can production hid this fact on I Will Be and their self-titled LP, but live, songs like Hey Sis became direct, melodic punches to the gut

3. The new album, Only in Dreams, is worth a second listen. Don‰’t be fooled by the ninth-grade-photography-class cover art, or the repetition of the lead single “Bedroom Eyes‰Û. The melodies came to the forefront at such a bare-bones show and I was converted. Thankfully it was loud enough that only the people immediately in front of me could hear me singing.