Happy Tops : Check List ****<i> Great Balls of Fire</i> ***<i> Good Vibrations</i> **<i> Maybe Baby</i> *<i> Running on Empty </i>

*** WOODENTOPS. “Wooden Foot Cops on the Highway.” Rough Trade/Columbia. Anti-Anglo music aficionados might joke that the only thing duller than the dour, depressing English pop so prevalent these days is the occasional happy, uplifting English pop.

In some ways, the Woodentops fit the latter British bill: Singer/songwriter Rolo McGinty’s instrument of choice is an acoustic guitar, and he’s prone to breathlessly romantic chorus lines.

Then again, the band’s second studio album comes to us from England’s Rough Trade Records, which is indication enough that this could still be fairly tough stuff. And so it is: So sharp is the quintet’s fine-tuned musical attack--in which that acoustic guitar is just one of handfuls of delightfully eclectic elements--that only after repeated listenings may most listeners figure out just how sentimental Rolo’s lyrical leanings really are.

Though there are more down-beat moments, the Woodentops’ best songs are the ones with the most frantic beats-per-minute ratios. “Stop This Car” even recalls the polyrhythmic hyperkineticism of Oingo Boingo, albeit aided and abetted by ecstatic violin. Clavinet and funky wah-wah and slide guitars also dip in and out of the mix, which is usually relentless but only rarely nervous. Here’s a reasonably commercial, but still roughshod, post-punk album that could justifiably steal the title of Public Image’s “Happy?” and turn that question mark into a delirious exclamation point.