Alex Scally, the guitarist half of dreamy duo Beach House, said if we didn’t have sweaty underpants, we weren’t rocking out enough.

Joker! Scally and singer-and-organist Victoria Legrand didn’t set out to rock us, more wreath us in a mist of beguilingly beautiful, bittersweet songs.

But with the success of 2010 album Teen Dream earning them promotion in the venue league, The Haunt is probably smaller and sweatier than they’re used to these days.

That was all the better for allowing us to get up close and personal to a band whose music is the very quintessence of intimate.

Scally, Legrand and their drummer, playing in front of a set suggesting dark urban spaces, bathed the space in a swoony set from Teen Dream and new album Bloom. We loved Walk In The Park, we blissed out to Zebra.

Then came that rare and special gig moment when the band locked into perfect sync and their quietly intense music stunned the usually loquacious Brighton audience into silent, admiring submission.

When, on Take Care, Legrand sang, “I’d take care of you, if you’d ask me to” (no need to tell you the answer to that one), the words that dotted the rhythm so precisely had a heartbreaking yearning.

Scally multitasked on guitar, electronics and bass pedals, and Legrand tossed her head of long, brunette curls like a woman possessed, her extraordinary voice spanning the ethereal to the almost masculine.

By the time the final, repeating guitar peels on encore Irene rang out, we were all possessed.