Seeing Department of Eagles live cleared something up for me. I’d spent some time with their debut full-length, In Ear Park, and I liked it—a great deal, in fact—but, it left me feeling confused. What are Fred Nicolaus and Daniel Rossen going for? What kind of band is this? Well, after seeing them last night I think I have an answer: they’re a pop group.

Last night was their first real show. They did Conan a few nights ago, and a live segment for Pitchfork, but this was the band’s first REAL show, and though pretty well rehearsed, an air of experimentation was palpable. They performed a number of songs as a duo, like the unreleased “1997,” and Rossen did a couple of tunes solo, including an excellent cover of the Jo Jo song “Too Little Too Late” (dedicated to Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste), but the real highlights came when Department of Eagles played as a full band.

For those songs, Rossen and Nicolaus were joined by Christopher Bear of Grizzly Bear on drums, Angel Deredoorian of Dirty Projectors on keyboard, and Nat Baldwin on bass (who also opened the show with an interesting Arthur Russel cover). With this line-up, Department of Eagles’ pop potential was fully realized. Rossen’s effervescent croon is given new life with songs like “No One Does It Like You,” and even though “In Ear Park” (most of their songs, really) has vocal harmonies that might be found on any Grizzly Bear track, there presence is reduced in the wake of more solid instrumentation. Department of Eagles are less about the slow build, as they are the steady rock, and it works—it really works.