Beirut at 9:30 Club

Beirut started out as a bedroom recording project for Santa Fe, N.M., songwriter Zach Condon, but five years after its recorded debut it has grown into a marching band. At least it more resembles a marching band than a rock band, with a whole section of brass and nary an electric guitar in sight.

The band has taken a more upbeat, accessible turn on this year’s “The Rip Tide” album — its third full-length release — but Condon’s songs remain languorous and brief. Sometimes they’re waltzes; often they’re introduced by his own ukulele or Perrin Cloutier’s accordion. On Tuesday, the first of two sold-out nights at the 9:30 Club, the sullen-faced, melancholy-voiced Condon fit a full headlining set’s worth of songs into a slender 70-minute performance. He lost little time to banter, electing instead to let his singing do the, uh, talking. It’s a morose warble that carries traces of Roy Orbison, Morrissey and the National’s Matt Berninger.

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( Josh Sisk / For The Washington Post ) - From left, Zachary Condon, Nick Petree and Kelly Pratt perform at the 9:30 Club.

The show began with “Scenic World,” fattened up from its skeletal 2006 recorded version into a warm, full-band arrangement. Stacked together, his martial love songs played like a tribute to the idea of weathering heartbreak with dignity. They could be the soundtrack to some film Wes Anderson hasn’t made (and Mark Mothersbaugh hasn’t scored) yet.

Ending the set proper after an hour, Condon returned to perform one number alone on his uke “for the set-list-takers,” then led the band in a version of “My Night With the Prostitute From Marseille” that traded the recorded tune’s slippery groove for something sadder and more lumbering — an anti-dance remix.

Klimek is a freelance writer.