Pop Music : Jazz Butcher Mixes Pop, Ballads at Roxy

Any way you slice it, the Jazz Butcher plays vivid, gregarious pop that owes little to the musical genre spotlighted in its name, other than a few token saxophone wails. The unfortunate moniker is probably partially responsible for keeping the British band from more widespread popularity. College radio enthusiasts of the sort who might otherwise be drawn to the group’s music generally consider jazz anathema and keep their distance.

For those alternative-rock fans who have discovered the Jazz Butcher, the rewards are considerable. At the Roxy on Friday, the band and its like-named lead singer delivered a curious mix of pixilated pop and dainty ballads, much of it from the new “Cult of the Basement” album. At its most Robyn Hitchcockian, the group resonated weirdness lyrically in the context of traditionally pretty tunes, as in “She’s on Drugs” and “Pineapple Tuesday.”

If the Jazz Butcher’s set seemed to drag at times, the group isn’t to be faulted as much as the opening Blue Aeroplanes are to be credited with stealing its thunder. Everything the Jazz Butcher can do, the Aeroplanes do better--which is to say extraordinarily well. Awash in glorious guitar din and energized by the gangly movements of a male dancer, their set displayed a far more remarkable talent than they’ve ever evinced on record.