POP MUSIC REVIEW : Pleasant Ooze From the Cocteau Twins

The Cocteau Twins are forever holding back. But even if the harmonious buzz that the Scottish group brought to the Universal Amphitheatre on Sunday never wandered into real musical euphoria (and who among their unsmiling fans in the dark threads and mascara could have wanted that? ), their multilayered sound was pure pop nonetheless.

As ever, the music emerged in a pleasant ooze: dark and inviting, the hypnotic pulse of the meandering lullabies given sudden, dramatic edge by the current lineup of three guitars. Singer Elizabeth Fraser delivered her familiar, unintelligible yelping, moaning, roaring and purring, snapping her head on the edge of a lyric.

It’s music that has never won significant airplay in the U.S., but has made the band’s core of Fraser, guitarist Robin Guthrie and bassist Simon Raymonde chart-topping alternative-rock heroes, and influenced such artists as Sinead O’Connor and the Cranberries.

The deepening pop sensibility displayed on the band’s new “Four Calendar Cafe” album didn’t interfere with the concert’s expected ethereal textures. By the halfway point of the 90-minute performance, almost no one was standing. Even the Amphitheater’s normally festive “party-in-the-pit” section up front was quiet--not from boredom, but in attention to these waves of rare pop invention.

* The Cocteau Twins perform tonight at Symphony Hall, 1245 Seventh Ave., San Diego . $22.50. (619) 699-4205. 7:30 p.m.; Wednesday at Bridges Auditorium, Claremont Colleges, Claremont. $20. (909) 621-8032, 8 p.m.