POP MUSIC

Editors find silver linings in gloomy post-punk clouds, and Michael Azerrad finds a new beat with King of France.

They won't bum you out, really

The first of the 2006 wave of British bands to try to win American hearts, Editors, plays L.A. on Monday (at Spaceland) and Tuesday (at Cinespace). But don't expect the Birmingham quartet to quite live up to the hyperbolic British press clippings that make its music out to be the soundtrack to depression.

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"We've been called the gloomiest band in England," singer Tom Smith says via cellphone, "but our songs are more romantic and optimistic rather than paranoid. We take our music seriously, so people confuse us with being miserable bastards."

Indeed, Editors work in the same dark palette as Joy Division, and their debut album, "The Back Room," pulses with bottom-heavy mettle like Interpol. Yet Chris Urbanowicz's atmospheric guitars and Smith's choruses leave their music several lamps short of darkness.

"There is an element of danger," Smith says, "but really we're just trying to make exciting, passionate guitar music that touches and moves people."

No guarantees, of course, that American audiences will be among those people. "We're pinching ourselves over how we've done here," Smith says of "The Back Room's" gold-record status in Britain. "We obviously have self-belief.... But we don't believe it's our right to be successful in the States. We're going to give it all we can."

Finding a new beat

Maybe the grass really is greener on the other side.

Throughout Michael Azerrad's career as a music journalist, even as he chronicled the early days of indie rock in his book "Our Band Could Be Your Life," he felt pulled in another direction — one in which he could pound a drum kit instead of a keyboard every night.

"I've been playing on and off since I was 7," he says. "I actually think of myself primarily as a drummer, but I happen to write about music."

Now Azerrad's passion is becoming his life. Anchoring the beat for the King of France, a raw, piano-driven trio from his native New York City, he and band mates Steve Salad and Matt Durant play at Spaceland on Friday (opening for the Helio Sequence) and Sea Level Records at 3 p.m. Saturday before heading out on tour with Nada Surf next month.

Though performing live offers a rush generally unavailable to rock journalists, Azerrad most enjoys the more meditative benefits of his new gig.

"I love music so much that sometimes I hate to think about it," he says. "It's so liberating to take off that professional cap and just enjoy music in the purest way."

Not too young for success

The last time Be Your Own Pet played L.A., you worried about them. Relegated as all underage performers at Spaceland are to the parking lot after they perform, the Nashville brat-punk quartet attracted hangers-on and industry types as if their teenage exuberance — not to mention record-selling potential — were contagious.

It could very well be. But the band — only half of whom are old enough to vote — aren't letting the hype fog their vision. "The attention has been shocking, overwhelming, exciting ... all those emotions, all at once. We're kinda getting used to it, and there's about to be another burst of it," guitarist Jonas Stein says. "But we're all focused and psyched about the coming year."

Behind them are a few EPs of caffeinated, thrashy rock, punctuated by the piquant yelps of blond spitfire Jemina Abegg, 17. The music quickly won over fans (and scribes) in Britain, where the quartet's album debut, "Be Your Own Pet," produced by Redd Kross' Steve McDonald, will be released in April on XL Recordings — on the heels of a headlining tour in England. The band's management says a deal with a U.S. label, which it declines to name, is imminent; the album is expected in June.

Stein, Abegg and band mates Nathan Vasquez (bass) and Jamin Orrall (drums) have packed 15 new songs into the 32-minute album. "The new single, 'Let's Get Sandy (Big Problem),' is 56 seconds long," he says. "But the one after that ["Adventure"], that will be more substantial."

Be Your Own Pet performs Tuesday at the Troubadour.

Fast forward

Touts: The Dimension Mix, released last year, celebrated the children's music of Bruce Haack and Esther Nelson's Dimension 5 Records with tracks by the likes of Beck, Stereolab, the Eels, Irving and Apples in Stereo. On Wednesday, there's the Dimension Mixer release party to toast the work of its producer, Ross Harris. The show, with DJ Peanut Butter Wolf and a set by the Anubian Lights, is at Cinespace and is a benefit for autism charities.... L.A. trio the Clean Prophets have finished recording their debut of sharp, churning psych-rock (no release plans yet); they play the Echo tonight.



Recommended downloads

Watch the video for Editors' "Munich" at www.editorsofficial.com

Watch the video for Be Your Own Pet's "Damn Damn Leash" at beyourownpetonline.com/media.htm

Stream the King of France's "Mexico" at www.thekingoffranceband.com/listen.htm