No one should have expected an act dubbed the Gutter Twins to be sublime.

JASON JANIK/Special Contributor

The Gutter Twins performed at the House of Blues on Thursday.

Nor should anyone have assumed that such a band would tear ceilings off the sucker, even ones as low as those in the House of Blues' Cambridge Room.

But the frontmen's sonic bloodlines provided hope for that kind of experience on Thursday night. Mark Lanegan's life-blasted baritone is one of the signature voices of underground alternative rock, first through Screaming Trees and more recently via Queens of the Stone Age, Soulsavers and as a solo act. Greg Dulli's boyish and craggy wail helped make the Afghan Whigs one of the classic cult bands of the 1990s. The macabre pair first converged in Mr. Dulli's dark and groovy Twilight Singers project a few years back, and both men's reputations suggested that a formal pairing was inevitable.

That partnership pays off on Saturnalia, a humid and almost religious-sounding debut CD full of fascinating cathartic songs. But in person, it was plain that each man strides to a beat that doesn't quite match the other.

Mr. Lanegan is a totem of abused stoicism onstage. He moves little, talks less and sings while clutching his mike stand as if it were his only possession. Mr. Dulli is much looser of body, lip and voice, in good ways and bad. He was more concerned with delivery and showmanship and less so with quality; his singing and piano playing wavered often while Mr. Lanegan's ominous croon always fit the proceedings.

Despite the flaws, which included some uncooperative gear and a not-quite-crack backing band, the 75-minute gig did satisfy in places. It took a minimalist approach to Saturnalia's content that worked on "Seven Stories Underground" but didn't on "The Stations" and "God's Children." It also avoided chunks of the CD in favor of a trio of rousing Twilight Singers selections and a few left-field covers, including Jose Gonzalez's "Down the Line," Bobby "Blue" Bland's "St. James Infirmary" and the Southern standard "Dixie."

Sometimes two disparate presences combine to create a larger-than-life act (Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart of Eurythmics). Here it only created peculiarities, which the Gutter Twins are in no shortage of already.