A grubby, low-ceilinged sweatbox, the Garage is the kind of venue that defies bands to make dramatic entrances. So full marks to Secret Machines for effort: blue lights strafe the tiny stage, an ominous chord is struck, strobes go off and three lanky figures pick their way through dry ice. The effect is rather like a spacecraft landing in a kebab shop.

Their entrance serves notice that the Texan trio have ambitions beyond the confines of a small club, even one buzzing with the news that several members of the Arctic Monkeys are in the audience. But even the presence of Britain's most hotly tipped band cannot dwarf the Secret Machines' sound, which is immense. It clearly belongs somewhere rather more expansive than here.

That somewhere, however, may be less Glastonbury at sunset and more the Wembley Empire Pool, soundtracking King Arthur on Ice. The splash-and-thud approach of drummer Josh Garza recalls the Flaming Lips, but otherwise the band's influences are firmly rooted in the period when psychedelia was mutating into progressive rock: the post-Syd Barrett Pink Floyd, the keyboard arpeggios and aggressive dynamics of Who's Next, the relentless pulse of krautrock. Plundering that era means walking a tightrope between thrilling experimentation and indulgence. Secret Machines certainly have the odd wobble. I Hate Pretending concludes with something that sounds suspiciously like a drum solo. The venue is so packed, it's hard to see who's playing keyboards, but the more declamatory passages provoke the worry that he might be wearing a cape.

More often, however, their influences coalesce into something disorientating and dangerously exciting. At full pelt, as on the harmony-laden Sad and Lonely, it occasionally feels less like listening to music than like trying to keep your balance in the middle of a gale. The audience seem suitably blown away.