POP MUSIC REVIEW : Been Rises Above the Noise

The Call’s Michael Been is one of the few men alive who can sing about the striving for heaven and holiness and make it sound positively sexy.

That he does it in the context of a high-decibel, highly commercial, great American rock ‘n’ roll band is even more remarkable. The Call’s brand of fervor doesn’t have much in common with traditional gospel: It’s akin to an intense arena-rock heavily informed by Muddy Waters, the Band, Van Morrison and John Lennon.

But in front of a packed, rabid Coach House crowd Wednesday, stocky, bearded Been broke through even the band’s loudest moments with quietly emotional expressiveness and grace, conveying both anxious yearning for the otherworldly and a very earthy lust for life.

Crooning the band’s current single, the lilting, Irish-flavored “What’s Happened to You,” Been sang about another person’s apparent spiritual transformation--”I don’t know what happened, but I like what I see”--with a kind of sly, sexy, suddenly pleased smile, as if he’d just seen the prettiest girl in town walk into the room.

The Santa Rosa-based quartet’s newest and best album, “Red Moon,” leavens the band’s slight tendency toward the anthemic with even warmer, rootsier and richer textures--from the defiant swamp-blues of “A Swim in the Ocean” to the Lennon-esque dysfunctional-family ballad “Family.” Introducing these subtler strains mid-show made the final, most feverishly mystical section of the two-hour-plus concert all that more cathartic. The Call will be playing L.A. dates in December.