POP MUSIC REVIEWS : Lack of Focus Clips Wings of One Dove

When the Scottish group One Dove closed its show at the Whisky on Wednesday with its most captivating song, “White Love,” it pulled a trick straight out of its dance-music background--offering two alternative “mixes,” as it were.

As a preliminary to the full-blown, synthesizer-powered version, singer Dot Allison was flanked by two guitarists, whose acoustic blend of chunky rhythm and bottleneck lead sounded like a bluesy outtake from the Stones’ “Beggars’ Banquet.” In the least-confining setting she was given all evening, Allison showed that she could sing with nuance and invention as well as the power she was called on to deliver for most of the set.

One Dove’s debut album late last year announced the arrival of a potential standard-bearer for the long-anticipated federation of dance-music pulse and rock ‘n’ roll emotion. Against those expectations, Wednesday’s L.A. debut by the Glasgow-based group was a bit of a letdown--a display of imaginative, often-stirring music that somehow never gathered the force to take off.

As it does on the “Morning Dove White” album, the group tried to reach beyond the limitations of a synthesizer-bound approach, supplementing its core of Allison, keyboardist Ian Carmichael and bassist-keyboardist Jim McKinven with hired hands: guitarist Colin McIlrow and percussionist Edward Higgins. This lineup staked out a territory where both the technological and the human impulses got their due.

The synth side--driving pulse, crunching beats, swirling textures--was balanced by the live players, notably McIlrow, whose lively rhythm playing and feedback outbursts were central to the music’s variety and impact. Still, the show didn’t quite capture the enveloping moods of One Dove’s record and didn’t come up with a compensating energy.

As the onstage focal point, Allison was up and down. In her jeans, fuzzy pink sweater and black-framed eyeglasses, she looked like an actress dressed down for a day of preliminary rehearsals. This created a suggestion of glamour deferred, which might have been a miscalculation. The show needed a strong focus, and while Allison’s voice was unfailingly strong and evocative, her inexperience or inclination left her an uncharismatic figure.

Annie Lennox, another Scot who started out by singing soulfully in front of synthesizers, is an obvious but pertinent comparison. One Dove is creative and ambitious, unafraid to tailor its tempos and sounds in the service of mood and emotion, to invoke ghosts, pursue elusive love and float into ecstasy in cathedral-like sonic chambers. Music this dramatic demands a convincing embodiment on stage, and Allison needs to take things up another level.