Badly Drawn Boy goes from erratic to energetic

``Badly Drawn Boy," Damon Gough's two-hour-long set at the Paradise Tuesday evening , was in many ways analogous to his career: incongruent, emotive, and unpretentious. The British singer-songwriter, known best for penning the soundtrack to the 2002 movie ``About a Boy," was at times distracted and erratic, lost in his own head as he pondered aloud what to play next, and criticizing his own musical abilities. Yet at other moments he seemed to rediscover the pure joy of his music, gazing around amusedly as he repeated his new tune ``The Degrees of Separation," imitated Bob Dylan, and obliged the crowd's song requests.

``I [expletive] hate new music," Gough mused at the start of the sold-out show. He's clearly had a love-hate relationship thus far with his latest release, ``Born in the UK ," Gough's fifth full-length album and his first with British powerhouse label EMI. He belittled the disc, which is set to be released on Monday (``This album nearly made me consider splitting up with myself"), yet played a set that relied heavily on material from it -- but with a delicate approach, as though the songs were a new friend's home and he was merely a houseguest. The contrast was stark when Gough migrated to more familiar tunes, such as ``The Further I Slide" and ``Once Around the Block," from his 2000 Mercury Prize-winning debut, ``The Hour of Bewilderbeast," which seemed as comfortable to him as his signature wool cap.

Gough truly shined during the nine-song encore, which opened with an attention-grabbing version of ``Fall in a River." His (previously unreleased) energy was palpable during his captivating renditions of two gems from his catalog: ``Everybody's Stalking" instantly pumped up the audience , then ``Magic in the Air" cooled them back down.

The youthful crowd, fans of his ``Bewilderbeast " and ``About a Boy" tunes, were loyal even through the less-inspired moments, tentatively accepting tracks from ``Born in the UK" and failing to appreciate classics from Gough's 1997 debut, ``EP1, " but wholeheartedly drinking in the lengthy encore.

Opener Sanders Bohlke's music is Ray LaMontagne meets John Legend with a Mississippi spin, and he strummed and shouted his way through a set most Amos Lee fans would have adored.