POP MUSIC REVIEW : Jesus Jones Stirs Up Slam Pit and Spirits

Midway through Jesus Jones’ show at Bogart’s in Long Beach on Tuesday, singer Mike Edwards quieted down the din of his London-based band and, with spare instrumental backing, sang a wry welcome back to Queen Victoria and all she stands for.

If anyone’s looking for a ‘90s heir to Ray Davies, Edwards might be it. The song recalled the Kinks’ artful social commentary and folksy, music-hall flavor, and the lanky Edwards has something of Davies’ bemused intensity--though he looks more like a skateboard thrasher than a rock ‘n’ roll dandy.

That new song’s subdued arrangement was hardly typical of the uproar and ferment that marked most of Jesus Jones’ set, but it underscored a key point about the group, which is starting to draw attention with its debut album “Liquidizer”: Though the band’s press clips emphasize the sampling technology that thickens the textures on the album, Jesus Jones’ strength is its songs, not the sauce.

Not that the quintet’s sound was superfluous at Bogart’s. Replacing the record’s electronic densities and mechanized beats with a leaner, looser, rhythm-oriented attack (the leanness might have had something to do with the equipment problems Edwards kept joking about), JJ stirred up both slam pit and spirits with its raging blend of thrash, funk and pop. The set-closing “Never Enough”--with the taunting refrain of “so you want to be happy . . . don’t you know happy is never enough”--has the earmarks of a ‘90s anthem. And Jesus Jones looks like a band that can live up to the challenge of that standard.