Many indie types from the 1980s and 1990s were secretly metal fans. But it’s not something they ever really wanted to admit to in public. They’d talk a good game about the Stooges and the Velvet Underground but back home – as was the case with Leeds’s goth overlord Andrew Eldritch, of the Sisters of Mercy – their living rooms were full of AC/DC videotapes. In fact, I’d go further and say the most influential track in the history of alternative music might very well be ‘Kashmir’ by Led Zeppelin rather than one of the hipster-anointed underground classics.

It sometimes feels as though every indie band with one foot in rock has to have their attempt at ‘Kashmir’, all jarring rhythms and slabs of guitar, faintly eastern, very grand. The Jesus Lizard’s version is called ‘Mouth Breather’, and it was the fifth song in their set, and marked the point at which all the younger people who had been hidden in a crowd of men with receding hairlines suddenly all seemed to appear at the front and create a heaving moshpit that never quieted.

The Jesus Lizard emerged in the early 1990s and were co-opted into the grunge wave (they released a split single with Nirvana), and thus became unlikely major label signings along with so many other hopeful punts. Like most of those other punts, they failed to make an impression beyond their already devoted following. Last year, though, they released Rack, their first record in 26 years, and one that bore easy comparison with their 1990s work.

At the Electric Ballroom, they were breathlessly exciting. They belong in that strange class of bands both defined by and limited by their singer. David Yow, now 64, is no singer in the traditional sense of the word: of course he didn’t sell any tickets for Capitol Records. He moans and yowls – he is one consonant away from nominative determinism – and sings about general awfulness (‘Puss’, the third song, was sung from the point of view of an unrepentant woman-beater). With his long, straggly hair, and balding pate, he looks like the strange caretaker in a horror movie – and acts like one.

His three extraordinary bandmates – guitarist Duane Denison, bassist David Wm. Sims and drummer Mac McNeilly – looked, by contrast, like the reunited founders of a successful outdoor clothing company, eminently sensible and healthy. Their absolute precision was what enabled Yow to slip the leash and slither his way through the set. And they really were brilliant: Sims brooding and staring at the very front of the stage, smacking his strings like a fast bowler pitching short of a length; Denison – in whose playing you could hear a generation of later heavy guitarists – concentrated and intense; McNeilly hitting his instrument with unrelenting ferocity.

Their set, too, had the perfect sound – in terms of both volume and mix. Loud enough to pummel you physically without it being unpleasant, and mixed – very hard with a loud band – in such a way that every element was distinguishable. There was nothing untethered and ragged about the Jesus Lizard, no lazy association of aggression with incompetence or sheer volume. It was like lying down in front of a bulldozer – in a good way.

Over at the Lexington, the newish Texas band Good Looks popped up on a strong bill with British country rockers Brown Horse. The gig was part of Five Day Forecast, a series showcasing fresh talent at a time when venues are quiet. Brown Horse couldn’t really be less fashionable if they proclaimed an undying love of Tony Blair and insisted on shopping only at Millets – British country rock made by apparently unassuming young people is not a growth area. But they have a bunch of terrific songs and in their set-closer, ‘Stealing Horses’, a proper lighters-aloft epic. Their second album comes along this spring on Loose. It will be worth hearing.

I saw Good Looks in New York last month and was knocked sideways by how good they were. They were even better in London – so good the standout from New York, ‘Vision Boards’, didn’t make it into the Lexington set. Tyler Jordan has one of those bruised, tired voices that can’t help but sound attractive, and guitarist Jake Ames supplies gorgeously coloured lead lines to Jordan’s rhythm playing. (Their second album, Lived Here For a While, was one of the best guitar records of last year.)

At heart they are a simple proposition: very melodic, melancholy music played with muscle and heft. And at the Lexington, on a cold, cold night, they made a packed room very warm indeed.