If you hadn’t heard them in full flight before their sold-out show at T.T. the Bear’s Place a week ago Saturday, playing with more confidence and heart than most bands who’ve endured the kind of commercial drop over the past half decade that Bettie Serveert have, you may have thought it brazen that the Dutch foursome would even have dared to record an entire live album of Velvet Underground covers, as they did back in 1998 with Plays Venus in Furs (Brinkman). This was the group, after all, who rode their 1992 underground smash debut, Palomine (Matador), to alterna-rock success, only to disappear from hitmaking view almost as quickly.

Nevertheless, Bettie Serveert have never stopped making records, and their new album and fifth studio CD overall, Log 22 (Hidden Agenda), is a shining example of their sharp, sparkling songcraft, both as a group and solo (check out the John Parish–produced beauty Private Suit on Hidden Agenda from a few years back, as well as singer Carol Van Dyk’s work with her country-folk side project the Chitlin’ Fooks). This time around, they’ve broadened their textural canvas by adding electronic touches, loops, and scattershot sound effects to their radiant brand of indie pop.

The core appeal remains singer/guitarist Van Dyk’s bright yet languorously slurring vocals, bassist Herman Bunskoeke’s warm, driving rumble, and lead-guitarist Peter Visser’s always elegant, often astonishing sonic storms — all of which were on sublime display at T.T.’s. The gang didn’t keep the crowd waiting for the old faves, opening with a drowsy, sweetly stabbing version of their first hit, " Palomine. " But their new material — " Smack, " a feisty Breeders-esque slice of indie rock, and the hazy humid heat of " De Diva " — was also on full display. Visser’s Ebow-treated guitar embellished a new, luminous ballad, " Captain of Maybe, " with a violin-like sob before the band dug into the sexy, ecstatic " Tom Boy. "

They closed their three-song encore with the soaring " Brain-Tag, " but what brought the Betties out for that coda was the narcotic manna of " White Dogs, " a new number that eclipsed the band’s pleasurable studio version. It began as an average folk-pop number before slamming headlong into an extended, hip-deep Velvets chug that grooved hard as it pilfered the freight-train riff of Uncle Lou’s " Waiting for the Man " — lock, stock, and barrel.