EAU DE ALLEYWAY : Life Sex & Death May Be Hard on the Nostrils, but It’s One Streetwise Rock ‘n’ Roll Band

If hard rock newcomers Life, Sex & Death find the success that some in the music industry are predicting for them, you can rest assured that its smell will not be sweet.

LSD is fronted by a fellow named Stanley (just Stanley) who gives the band its distinctive personality--and its odor, which is eau de alleyway. To put it bluntly, Stanley looks and acts like a gutter bum, with hair matted, clothes grimy and tattered, posture hunched and affect seemingly addled.

There has been lots of speculation as to whether his persona is real or a gimmick (if it is an act, he’s more dedicated than De Niro). What’s incontrovertible is that Stanley is a tremendous rock ‘n’ roll performer.

I saw LSD last fall at the Doll Hut in Anaheim, the tiny roadhouse that was one of the first places to take the band in after it migrated westward in 1990 from its native Chicago. John Mello, the Doll Hut’s co-owner, said I had to see Life, Sex & Death. And within moments, I knew he was right--as hard as the experience might have been on the nostrils at such close quarters.

Stanley was supremely kinetic and, for all his seeming disorientation, fully self-possessed when it came to his stage moves and his ability to dramatize a song. His band mates, drummer Brian Horak, bassist Bill E. Gar and guitarist Alex Kayne, laid down a metal-blues alloy that was honed and brutal. The street-denizen persona seemed absolutely real, lending dimensions both fearsome and poignant. But even if Stanley had been up there clipped, cleaned and neatly turned out, his level of intensity and abandon would have made him a remarkable presence.

Considering the outlandishness of its singer, LSD’s debut album, “The Silent Majority” (due next month from Reprise Records), comes off in some ways as surprisingly conservative, although it does have enough idiosyncrasies and surprises to set it apart from the rest of the hard-rock pack.

Using producers who have worked with Motley Crue, Ozzy Osbourne and Heart, LSD cannily touches many of the tested buzz-buttons known to get metal kids revving. “Jawohl (Bleep-bleep)” is a fist-pounder and headbanger that sells resentment against authority in the familiar tradition of Ozzy or Judas Priest. “School’s for Fools” applies Van Halen-ish high spirits to an old Alice Cooper conceit. “Raise a Little Hell” is the sort of anthem every metal band has in its deck of cards, and “Wet Your Lips” is a randy and funny workout that again recalls Van Halen.

Stanley, whose thick, grainy blues-informed voice is powerful and pliant, gets into some terrific street theater with a song the title of which we’ll have to paraphrase here as “Bleepin’ Bleep-bleep.” But a chirpy, Raspberries-style chorus undermines the song’s angry effect (the thrust of LSD’s lyrics, written by Stanley, is mainly positive).

At its best, LSD probes more personal themes.

“Telephone Call,” one of several songs with heavy echoes of Led Zeppelin, deals with memories of childhood anguish and the existential quandary over whether right will ultimately prevail over might. “I’m just a little man, I can do a little dance, I can sing a little song--have I done so wrong? Oh, I cry,” Stanley sings in one of his most personal moments. Later in the song, he confesses, “I’m still that little boy haunted by loss in the middle of the night.”

In “Hey Buddy,” he alludes to the death of a father, and to his own yearning for release from worldly troubles. With “Tank,” he recovers to deliver a snarling but exuberant pep-talk about rolling over life’s obstacles.

The album’s biggest surprise is the concluding ballad, “Rise Above,” in which Stanley, with sensitive piano self-accompaniment, tries to talk himself out of a depression brought on by a dashed romance. It’s not one of those rote, overblown pop-metal ballads, but something that Ray Charles or Joe Cocker well might be able to sing with conviction. Stanley does just fine, as soulful and tender in this moment as he is raucous in others.

“The Silent Majority” is an exceptionally catchy and forcefully rocking album that taps sources and styles with proven appeal to a mass audience. It will be interesting to see whether Stanley’s persona will help attract a following, or repel listeners who otherwise probably would lap up this music on its merits.

As for that smell--unless dirt is to Stanley as hair was to Samson, it probably won’t hurt if he does decide to take a bath. Talent isn’t water-soluble.

Who: Life, Sex & Death.

When: Saturday, July 18, at 9:30 p.m. with Tender Fury and Def FX, and Sunday, July 19, at 7:30 p.m. with Twisto Frumpkin, Zealous and Stix n Stones.

Where: Saturday at Bogart’s in the Marina Pacifica Mall, 6288 E. Pacific Coast Highway, Long Beach; Sunday at the Fullerton Hop, 1401 S. Lemon St., Fullerton.

Whereabouts: To Bogart’s: Take the San Diego (405) Freeway to the Seal Beach Boulevard exit, go left, then right on Westminster Avenue and right again on Pacific Coast Highway. To the Hop: Riverside (91) Freeway to Lemon Street exit; go north.

Wherewithal: Bogart’s: $10; Fullerton Hop: $7.50 in advance, $10 night of show.

Where to call: Bogart’s: (310) 594-8975; Hop: (714) 526-8467.