At the Showbox at the Market on Friday night, Carissa's Wierd didn't come back to life so much as appear like a ghost summoned to a séance. Mat Brooke and Jenn Ghetto took the stage dressed in black, as if attending a funeral. Without a word, the seven-years-dormant band launched into the glacially moving "Low Budget Slow Motion Soundtrack Song for the Leaving Scene" (about as self-explanatory a title for what they do as possible), Brooke and Ghetto harmonizing in whisper: "Absence only made our hearts grow colder/I will be waiting/I'll just keep waiting for you." The applause from the packed crowd (and, during the band's quiet songs, the awed silence) made clear that those who'd been waiting for this reunion had lost no warm feelings for the band over the years. When the audience wasn't keeping quiet during the songs or cheering wildly between them, you could occasionally just make out someone reverently singing along under their breath.

The band mostly played songs off the new retrospective, They'll Only Miss You When You Leave: Songs 1996–2003. Some songs hit far louder crescendos than on record, while the easy, almost bashful morning-after ditty "One Night Stand" was more subdued. "All Apologies and Smiles, Yours Truely, Ugly Valentine"—a relatively upbeat apologia in which Brooke's hushed singing is bolstered by a tight backbeat, sweeping strings, and accordion sighs—was nervously sped up, to its detriment.

There are basically two kinds of Carissa's Wierd songs—the long, slow ones that build to one great final refrain and the more compact, poppy, chorus-heavy numbers. My dream set list would have included more of the latter. I'd have loved to hear "A Loose Hair Falls into a Glass of Water Without Ice" with its deftly interlocking verses, rousing little hand claps, and swaying violin. They did play the bitter, brittle "Die"; the morbid but comforting "Drunk with the Only Saints I Know"; and "Ignorant Piece of Shit," which sounded sneering and seductive (even with Ghetto skipping her parts on the verses).

The between-song banter, mumbled and muted, consisted almost entirely of overwhelmed gratitude from the band. "This is the biggest show we've ever played," said Brooke at one point. Later: "This is so much different than playing house parties in basements." Then the band made a false start on the song he was introducing, and he added, "...or not."

Obviously, the biggest surprise—and for the hardcore CW fan, the most hopeful moment of the night—was the final song of the set, labeled on the set list simply as "New Song." "We didn't know what to expect, and we honestly couldn't ask for anything more," Brooke said. "We're gonna play one more song for you. If you don't recognize it, it's for a good reason." It was classic Carissa's Wierd, beautiful and longing, the reunited singers intoning, "You've been gone so long." The band leaves behind an outstanding catalog of songs, and this show was a worthy monument. Still, you can't help hoping for more to come.

We'll just keep waiting.