Brooklyn art-rockers TV on the Radio have some blue-chip fans. Two years ago their debut album triumphed over more fancied nominees such as Wilco and the Streets to win the Shortlist Prize, the US answer to the Mercury. Their next record will guest star David Bowie, and they have been working with Massive Attack, whose Robert del Naja is lurking at the back of the ICA tonight. Odd and uncategorisable, they are the perfect cult band. You want brittle post-punks? Beardy prog-rockers? An avant-soul outfit? TV on the Radio are all of the above.

If the true spirit of art-rock resides in bands who find fresh ways to confound rather than those who emulate the pioneers of 20 years ago, then TV on the Radio's cussed refusal to follow anybody's templates is admirable, but it's often not the kind of admirable that's fun to listen to. Perhaps frontman Tunde Adebimpe realises this when he says, "Thanks for staying after the first song. That's really cool."

Adebimpe is a star, but it's as if the rest of the band have conspired to make his job as difficult as possible. He sings with power and vulnerability, hurling his head back and thrashing his free arm as if batting away a cloud of aggrieved wasps, but he's constantly undercut by the skittering rhythms and queasy keyboard-and-guitar blur, not to mention gloopy acoustics that render almost every lyric inaudible. Guitarist Kyp Malone is even less help when he joins in on what might be loosely described as harmonies.

Somewhere deep within the mess a great band is buried. Played as an encore, the eerily beautiful Ambulance sounds like an avant-garde Marvin Gaye ballad set to a human beatbox rhythm. At last they give Adebimpe, and their sound, space to breathe.