Pop Music Review : Lush Sharpens Its Image at LunaPark

While a generation of young rock women is turning to the likes of Joan Jett and Chrissie Hynde for inspiration, Lush’s Miki Berenyi has seemingly reached back to such older, underappreciated heroines as Jackie DeShannon and Sandie Shaw.

In an intimate performance at a hot and sweaty LunaPark on Thursday, Berenyi mixed that striking pop presence into the English quartet’s swirls of sound to great effect. In a show that focused largely on material from the band’s recent third album, “Split,” Lush forged the vague promise it had shown in the past into a distinct and at times magnetic package mating an evolved pop sense with a forcefully fuzzy (and thoroughly ‘90s) sound.

The key was Berenyi’s pop melodies and flexible voice--echoing DeShannon and, in places, Marianne Faithfull--which are strong enough not to get lost in the band’s blur and bash. The music, too, has evolved impressively. Old comparisons to the Cocteau Twins remain valid, but Lush has found its own language within the hazy form, with Philip King’s bass out front providing solid rock momentum and Berenyi and Emma Anderson’s fuzzy guitars making a bed on which the vocals alternately float and bounce.

There’s still room for improvement in terms of the band’s physical presentation, though. None in the group does much to reach out from the stage, although the sultry, orange-haired Berenyi, in the close quarters of this club, was a presence nearly as strong as her tunes.