Like their aesthetic peers and onetime tourmates Franz Ferdinand, Sunderland, U.K.'s Futureheads keep new wave-post-punk brisk, meticulous, and very British, pulling from au courant elders like XTC, Madness, and even the Who with scrupulous attention to plucking fresh new hooks with every track.

Lyrically, the songs on The Futureheads play on atypical relations and average office dwellers ("Robot" and "First Day" recall XTC's ode to the corporate cog, "Making Plans for Nigel"), singling out human machinery while warming up the mechanics of their own clockwork delivery with overlapping vocal harmonies and a speedy succession of hits in the making. Their kickiest track is definitely "Decent Days and Nights" – the command "If you work it out, tell me what you find" punches in over push-pull instrumentals, and tempos slip between speeds like a Citroën with a cracked gearshift. But really, none of the tracks on this pert debut, produced in part by Gang of Four's Andy Gill, have time to rot on the vine, as each one is an animated complement to its predecessor, possessing the infinite pep of a well-constructed single.

Leave it to U.K. kids to push forth what's been coined a new "angular pop" movement, carving edges as crisp as newly minted bills in guitar riffs and tidy rhythm sections that change direction like fickle singles. At a time when piling on the distortion pedals and reerecting those sneaker-staring walls of sound is de rigueur, it's refreshing to also hear sharp acts that use minimal amounts of the elements at their disposal to devise an aesthetic that's so utterly contagious. The Futureheads play Nov. 19, Popscene, 330 Ritch, S.F. (415) 541-9574. (Jennifer Maerz)

VHS or Beta
Night on Fire (Astralwerks)

Somewhere along the way you've heard these ironists before. Anyone who has ever stepped into a dance club has been exposed to the synth washes, electronic drum rhythms, and wry confessions of love of bands like the Pet Shop Boys and Duran Duran. And while this Louisville, Ky., quartet undoubtedly share a love for post-disco (and even British vocals, courtesy of Craig Pfunder and Zeke Buck) with their new wave predecessors, there is, with each generation, a need to update the genre – and the irony. On Night on Fire, VHS or Beta face-lift house music and indie rock by layering traditional '90s guitar riffs over an insistent rhythm of 4/4 beats. The effort may seem contrived, but the result is seamless. Rarely does it feel like two genres duct-taped into one, but rather it seems like a real hybrid of disco, funk, rock, and house, using keyboards, electronic drums, and samples to finish off the sound. No track drives this union home further than all-acoustic "Nightwaves." The band start with simple, fuzzy samples and a standard techno beat, then high-wrenching guitar solos are gradually added to the mix, playing off the drum machine. Later the guitar takes hold of the sound's direction and steers the rhythm into another pattern of beats.

While this band's first full-length is less lyrically cheeky and more dance-funk polished than anything British or French dance groups have created, VHS or Beta's attempt to merge '80s dance music and '90s rock in 2004 has unknowingly brought us back to the '70s and is likely to have hipsters scratching their heads and asking, "Is this the Cure, remixed?" VHS or Beta play with the Fever and the Colour Mon/1, Bottom of the Hill, S.F. (415) 626-4455. (Stephanie Laemoa)

Amplified Heat
In for Sin (Arclight)

The picture inside the CD case of In for Sin has Austin, Texas's Ortiz brothers, Jim, Chris, and Gian – otherwise known as Amplified Heat – looking every bit like Black Sabbath, circa 1970, minus the giant crosses. Sabbath started as an over-amplified blues act called Earth before becoming the heaviest band in history, and the blues is where A.H. take up Sab's cross. The album's title track manages to incorporate every cliché of the idiom: big-breasted women, shakin' my tree, keep me cool in the daytime, keep me warm at night, goin' down to Louisiana. It's all in there, with the possible exception of a blind guy playing slide guitar on the porch. Chris, who was once kicked out of a band for drumming "too loud," channels Bill Ward's smack-it-with-a-sledgehammer style on "Just a Junkie" (for love, of course), an otherwise mediocre 12-bar shuffle.

I don't doubt the brothers genuinely dig the blues, although their songs are most successful when they return to their stoner-rock roots, as in the hot-rod ode "Roadrunner" and the screw-me-till-I'm-broken Motörhead send-up "Wagon Wheel," where Jim takes a few swigs of Tabasco before launching into a decent Lemmy impression, à la "Love Me Like a Reptile." "Trapped," a decade-old tune from Chris's first band, Mass Abomination, takes Amplified Heat in what feels like a more natural direction: "Evil's near! There's no escape, doom ..." There it is. As Ozzy said, on that first track on Sab's first album, which obviously meant so much to these guys, "Oh no! Please, God, help me!" All in all, this is a pretty enjoyable record, but it'd sound much better in the back of a primer-gray Camaro hauling ass to a bowling alley to meet some chicks with feathered hair and tight jeans that zip in the back. Don't spill the bong water, bro! Amplified Heat play Nov. 3, Elbo Room, S.F. (415) 552-7788. (Duncan Scott Davidson)

Dead Science
Bird Bones in the Bughouse EP (Absolutely Kosher)

There's nothing like a dose of anachronism to liven up the rock scene when things get boring. Case in point: Seattle band the Dead Science's Bird Bones in the Bughouse. The melodrama of the dim black-and-white cover says it all: a capped bloke prepares to stab a waif, but the unlit cigarettes drooping wearily from their mouths hint that neither of them could give a fuck, either way. Bird Bones is essentially jazz but with a rock attitude – a modern sound against an old-fashioned backdrop. The opening drum roll could just as easily introduce a Victorian carnival. Funereal horns and guitar played like a classical harp punctuate a cover of Terence Trent D'Arby's "Sign Your Name."

Trained as jazz musicians, Sam Mickens (vocals and guitar) and brothers Khorum Bischoff (drums) and Jherek Bischoff (bass) are keen observers of the lost art of taking one's sweet time, remaining calm even during the EP's loudest moments. Mickens's sensual whisper builds to a delicate caterwaul without a trace of angst or panic, creeping over the slow, starry ostinato of his guitar like fog. But there's a fine line between calm and lethargy. Although the inherent sophistication of the music is admirable, the EP leaves the listener sleepy. Mickens fronts downtempo songs like the D'Arby cover and wilder moments such as rolling bike accident "Ossuary" with uniform listlessness. Khorum's drums provide a consistent source of driving energy, and he has a masterful grip on dynamics, but one member can't carry the whole band on his back. The Dead Science play Wed/27, Hemlock Tavern, S.F. (415) 923-0923. (Leah Freeman)