POP MUSIC REVIEW : T’PAU BRINGS POP-TART ROCK TO L.A.

It’s a hard name to remember, T’Pau is. Should the kids currently buying “Heart and Soul” (the English band’s first single, currently No. 4 on the American charts) bother to memorize the moniker, or just chalk the group up as a breezy summer one-hit wonder to be forgotten come the cool winds of fall?

The long-term retention factor surely isn’t helped by T’Pau’s confusion of derivative style and image, as evidenced in the band’s local debut Tuesday at the Roxy.

The single is the sort of light dance fluff that’s fairly interchangeable with other current female-crooned hits by Debbie Gibson or Expose. So it was a tad surprising when T’Pau took the Roxy stage as something of a hard- rock guitar band, with front-woman Carol Decker looking like a ‘70s bar-band chick singer in her leather jacket and tight jeans.

But before too long, off came the jacket, revealing a more revealing and midriff-baring shirt, and off went some of the static guitar sounds, revealing something like the Top 40 pop group one originally suspected was there.

The combo’s slight shot at memorability comes with singer Decker, who shows strong signs of not being a bimbo. Her Connie Stevens-like face is complemented by a very pre-new-wave long and wavy red hair style that’s anything but the Modern Material Girl Look. She has a real voice--high and gritty--and she’s more sassy than boy-toy coy. (The sassiness gets tiring fast, though, and the smirk could have used a rest.) As a lyricist, at least she tries.

But, for all the spunk and personality she brings to the group, what T’Pau still ends up looking and sounding like is either a more teenybop-style Patty Smyth & Scandal or a more hard-edged rock ‘n’ roll Bananarama. Whichever, it’s more the kind of pop-tart stuff that sticks in your craw than something that would actually stick in your brain.