POP WEEKEND : Albert Collins, Gun Club Come to Orange County

Proving you can’t keep a good band down, the Gun Club--noted for changing musicians more often than UCLA goes through basketball coach prospects--has emerged after a three-year hiatus with its surest lineup yet.

This year’s model--founding singer-frontman Jeffrey Lee Pierce, come-and-go guitarist Kid Congo Powers, and two newcomers, bassist Romi Mori and drummer Nick Sanderson--is capable of generating a more focused fury while rendering the band’s menacing kitchen-sink rock. But playing Saturday at Night Moves in Huntington Beach, the Gun Club indicated that applying more skill and sinewy force to its sprawling musical mixture won’t necessarily keep the performance from being a mixed bag.

Variety has never been a problem, and, indeed, that wasn’t the problem Saturday. The foursome covered considerable ground, mostly navigating through that furious country-blues swampland Pierce staked out years ago.

But the always-mercurial outfit also flitted abruptly from style to style, whether playing new songs (the gliding, atmospheric “Yellow Eyes” to the barreling sonic train “Bill Bailey”--both from the recent “Mother Juno” LP--or leaping back a few years for such noggin-rattling rave-ups as “Sex Beat.”

Whichever direction the Club moved, the new rhythm team of Mori and Sanderson (who would fare well in an Anthony Michael Hall look-alike contest, although he probably has a brighter future in drumming) generally laid a firm foundation.

So it could have been a fully stirring, truly triumphant evening. But the new Gun Club was dogged by the unevenness that often plagued the old Gun Club--and Pierce seemed oddly disconnected from the proceedings. He sang with the usual quivery passion, but he’s far more subdued on stage these days.

Everything just seemed a little off Saturday, despite some fine new material and a strong new lineup. Maybe it was just an off night?