POP MUSIC REVIEWS : BATTLE OF THE BANDS

In this corner: impressionistic Scottish ethereality with a Catholic bent! In the other corner: relentless runway-noise-level Australian trash-rock!

Sound like battle-of-the-bands time at the Roxy? Actually, both the spiritually concerned Silencers and the somewhat more carnal Lime Spiders came out winners in Thursday’s show, disparate as their approaches proved.

The headlining Silencers lean heavily on vague (often too vague) imagery filtered through a Christian sensibility (yes, Them2), but in concert, at least, the quartet’s commitment to controlled passion was down-to-earth enough.

True, singer Jimme O’Neill comes up with some clumsy and unfocused lyrics, but it doesn’t seem an arrogant kind of elusiveness. Unlike so many other “impressionistic” European groups, the friendly Silencers at least seem to have the desire to communicate with their audience--and their frequent inability to do so clearly is reminiscent of nothing so much as the younger, more naive U2.

The Silencers’ rock is a bit more traditionally pop-melodic than that comparison implies, though. And unlike most other bands who stress big-universe themes, they don’t go for a big-universe sound--it’s light on the reverb, which is admirable enough but sometimes leaves the guitars sounding thin.

In what one onlooker characterized with only slight exaggeration as “the greatest harmonica solo of all time,” O’Neill went wild for several minutes at the end of the climactic “Painted Moon,” sending it soaring far beyond all the other mid-tempo pieces the group specializes in.

The Lime Spiders specialized in rocking out pure, hard and simple. For those who like it loud, proud and not too stupid, the Aussies (who headline at Scream tonight) offer a worthy alternative to the affectations of the Cult.