KROQ Clone MARS-FM Goes for the Jackhammer Beat : The station hopes what works in clubs will work everyplace else. But do we really want to pump up the volume 24 hours a day?

Earth to MARS, Earth to MARS . . . the new MARS-FM (103.1), that is:

It’s one thing to hear “industrial” or “acid-house” dance music in a club at 1 in the morning, where the pounding, purposely monotonous beat--thumped through a state-of-the-art sound system--may propel your basic hepster to hit the floor one last workmanlike time in spite of the slowing effect of that last round of rum-and-Cokes.

It’s another to hear it stuck on the freeway at rush hour, where the unrelenting, machine-like, unmelodious rhythm pumping from your tinny car speakers may a little too closely resemble the dull cranking of your and everyone else’s idling engines.

Do we really want to pump up the volume 24 hours a day?

MARS-FM--the name given to a 20-day-old format being simulcast on the same frequency by KOCM (Newport Beach) and KSRF (Santa Monica)--is betting that what works in the clubs late at night will also work at home, auto, workplace or workout place, at drive time and every other time.

Mostly, though, MARS is betting that younger listeners eager to shake booty will defect from similarly formatted alternative outlet KROQ-FM (106.7) once they find out there’s more dance music a little bit left on the dial.

Program director Freddy Snakeskin raised the hopes of some music fans by promising that MARS would have the loose spirit and adventurous playlist once characteristic of the early KROQ, Los Angeles’ “new music” pioneer and his former employer.

Unfortunately, the new outlet’s format has turned out to be nearly indistinguishable from KROQ’s current music mix, but for a far greater emphasis on dance remixes and obscure alternative club hits--hardly a return to the glory days of new-wave rock attitude by any stretch of imagination.

Like its influential elder competitor, MARS is heavy on such stalwarts of the genre as Morrissey, the Cure, INXS, Simple Minds and the Thompson Twins. The point of demarcation--such as it can be determined--is MARS’ over-reliance on the new generation of Manchester-style psychedelic disco, a la Jesus Jones, the Happy Mondays and EMF, along with a greater sampling of such boring, bottom-heavy dancemeisters as Thrill Kill Cult, Yello and LaTour, which have little to recommend them beyond rhythm.

Any time a new program director sets up shop in this town playing something besides urban-oriented Top 40 or classic rock--let alone a plethora of unknown artists--it’s worth supporting, and MARS’ mix could improve with fine-tuning. But right now it comes off as a constricted KROQ clone with a jackhammer bent; the only niche the station mines much more deeply than its rival is toe-tapping, mind-numbing “industrial” rock, hardly a gold mine of riches.