I headed out to the Sparklehorse show at the Showbox last night as a friend’s surrogate BF; her fulltime flame — who had bought her tickets for Valentine’s Day weeks earlier — had been called out of town at the last minute. Given the circumstances and the often downtrodden sound of Mark Linkous’ pitch-shifted ruminations, I expected a lovely bummer of an evening.

Linkous started things off as expected, with a breakup memoir: “I want my records back,” he warbled, his voice intentionally tarnished and distant behind an effected microphone. We were prepared to shed tears into beers, but amidst the music’s melancholy and songs of sinking sunsets and tiger’s hearts, Linkous never copped to easily discernable emotions. The band mostly remained short and punchy, even as the crowd called for them to stretch things out. His keyboardist played with a churchlike solemnity, and a steel guitarist at the back of the stage submerged Linkous’ vocals in a cosmic country wail. Along with an appropriately laid-back drummer and a solid bassist, the band would occasionally peak with towering crescendoes, as on a sorely sweet “You Are My Sunshine.” All around us couples were coupling, and suddenly it seemed this dreamy, damaged music might be the perfect soundtrack to real world romance.

But Linkous saved the clincher til the end. “It’s a sad and beautiful world,” he sang, his voice finally free of distortion. As the room fluttered under the silver dapple of the Showbox’s spinning mirror ball, the words were pure truth. And what could be more romantic than that?