Burning Bush : Sure, the guitars are loud, but these English upstarts wouldn’t be caught dead wearing plaid. Forget those unfair comparisons to Seattle, they say, and judge them on their own merits.

Like Sting and Michael Hutchence before him, Gavin Rossdale suffers from what could be called PMSS: pretty male singer syndrome.

With his lean, sinuous frame, high cheekbones and dark elegance, the singer for the English band Bush could pass for a younger and more wholesome version of Hutchence, whose heartthrob image almost overshadowed the music of his group, INXS.

Although lookers from Elvis Presley onward have received their share of critical praise, there’s no question that good looks do tend to raise critical suspicion, making it harder for an artist to gain respect.

Of course, Rossdale and his bandmates--guitarist Nigel Pulsford, bassist Dave Parsons and drummer Robin Goodridge--may not be inclined to take the critics too seriously these days, given the hearty encouragement they’ve received from the public during the past year.

Bush’s debut album, “Sixteen Stone,” is now approaching the 2-million sales mark, and the catchy leadoff single, “Everything Zen,” has become an MTV favorite, solidifying the group’s status as a pop contender.

Two additional singles, “Little Things” and “Comedown,” are also being played heavily on “Buzz Bin,” MTV’s barometer of hip. Two of the band’s three shows at the Mayan Theatre, which start tonight, are sold out.

Still, Bush stands accused by pundits of being a bunch of slick Brits who, perhaps in light of their country’s failure to seduce the United States with original sounds over the past few years, have copped the edgy, distortion-heavy textures and angst-ridden attitude associated with today’s successful American bands--particularly a few based in Seattle.

“Bush are seen as inauthentic second-generation grunge--a cross between Pearl Jam and Nirvana minus the passion,” sniffed a recent Rolling Stone article, summarizing the critical overview.

Three members of Bush are reflecting on this image problem as they sit in a hotel lobby in mid-town Manhattan, just a few blocks from the club they’re scheduled to play that evening. Rossdale defends his band with a casual eloquence that only adds to his charm.

“That Seattle comparison is really such a lazy one,” he says. “If you’ve got loud guitars, and the singing isn’t screechy-high, it’s almost inevitable that you be connected with bands like Nirvana--who have done so much for music, after all.

“But we have such a breadth of stuff on our album. I mean, I think that the current single, ‘Comedown,’ is about as far from the Seattle sound as you can get. And we do play with passion; we believe in what we do. Certainly we were inspired by other people, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

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Bush--which, it should be noted, has also been praised by some critics for its edgy but accessible guitar pop--shares a key influence with Nirvana: punk.

“Growing up in England, we were all punks in our own way,” says Rossdale, who comes from London. “When I was 12, you know, I had this spiky bleached-blond hair. I was really into it.”

All the members of Bush, who are now in their late 20s, have older siblings who were teen-agers in the late ‘70s, when the punk explosion was at its peak. Thus they were exposed to that aggressive, urgent sound early.

R ossdale, who writes the group’s material and also plays rhythm guitar, got his start as a musician considerably later than his bandmates. The former artist and house painter began learning guitar when he was 19.

He performed in bands in his early 20s and supported himself with odd jobs. The nucleus of Bush was formed when Rossdale hooked up with Pulsford in December, 1992. A few months later, they completed the lineup with Parsons and Goodridge.

The fledgling group shopped its demo recording around in England for a while but didn’t get a deal until a British radio producer tipped American record executive Rob Kahane to the early Bush track “Honky Manchild,” which was getting some airplay on a Radio One program featuring unsigned bands.

Having managed George Michael, Kahane had ears and eyes for pop-star charisma; and after seeing a clip of Bush performing the song on a British television show called “The Word,” he signed the band to Trauma Records, a label he was starting with fellow artist manager Paul Palmer. (Just before “Sixteen Stone” was released, Trauma landed a distribution deal with Interscope Records, home to modern stars as diverse as Snoop Doggy Dogg and Nine Inch Nails.)

Rossdale stresses that herein lies a fundamental difference between Bush and other young European acts that initially broke in the United States.

“Bands like the Cranberries and Radiohead put records out in England first,” the singer says. “But they weren’t successful, so they had to come to America to find success. In contrast, our record deal was based in the [San Fernando] Valley. Rob Kahane offered us a situation with full creative control, and so we went with it.”

Indeed, “Sixteen Stone” wasn’t even released in Britain until late February, more than three months after its American debut.

“And now we’re starting to take off in England,” Rossdale points out. “We’ve now got a sold-out tour over there. So we figure that by next Christmas, things will be completely equal everywhere around the world. We’ll have achieved a balance.”

Already balanced, according to the guys in Bush, is the gender makeup of the crowds who attend their shows. While their appeal to teen-age girls would go without question to anyone who isn’t blind, the musicians proudly insist that the audiences they draw are about half male.

“We get an interesting spread of ages as well,” Rossdale says. “We got flowers from a couple in their 50s the other day, with a note saying, ‘Hi, kids! We thought “Zen” was a bit vulgar when we first heard it, but then we bought the album and read your lyrics, and they were very interesting. Our favorite cut is “Little Things.” Keep making the good music. See ya, kids!’ ”

B ush fans young and old should be alerted that if they have the necessary computer equipment, they can now watch the foursome in cyberspace. In July, Trauma and the media entertainment company Highway One released a three-track CD called “Little Things”--featuring a live recording of the title song and the previously unreleased track “Bud.” It includes a CD-ROM portion containing audio samples of songs from “Sixteen Stone” accompanied by band members’ explanations of how each song came about. In addition, the CD-ROM offers videos, performance clips, games and footage from backstage and the tour bus.

“We wanted something cutting-edge to give back to the people who have been buying all our stuff,” Rossdale says. “The best thing about this new technology is that it’s all about communication and reaching out--whereas five years ago it was about storing stuff and infiltration, quite lonely things like that. . . . There’s even this really bizarre [clip] of me singing ‘Suspicious Minds’ on it--singing it very suspiciously, ‘cause I didn’t know the chords. Or most of the words!”

Such forays into interactive media are only one aspect of a long-term career plan that, as Kahane details it, sounds quite ambitious.

“I look at [Bush] as an alternative version of U2,” Kahane says. “These guys have been spending a lot of time together on the road, sharing experiences and feeding off of each other’s creativity, like Bono and those guys did. A lot of people don’t realize that this is such a young band, in terms of how long they’ve been together. I mean, this was just their first tour. This is the very beginning for them.”

If Rossdale plans to become as big a star as Bono, he has wisely kept that aspiration to himself so far. But by making a more modest comparison, Bush’s singer does echo Kahane’s point that the group is just getting started.

“We’ll be recording a new album early next year,” he reports. “You know, after Smashing Pumpkins put out [their first album] ‘Gish,’ everyone said, ‘Hmmm, that’s interesting--isn’t that Jane’s Addiction?’ Then [their breakthrough album] ‘Siamese Dream’ came out, and suddenly they had their own musical island, and they became the purveyors of good taste in music, the authority on how it should be. Maybe that will happen to us with our second album--there will be no more comparisons to other bands.”

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Bush plays tonight through Tuesday at the Mayan Theatre, 1038 S. Hill St., 8 p.m. Tickets are available for Tuesday’s show only, $22. (213) 746-4287. *

Hear Bush

To hear a sample of the album “Sixteen Stone,” call TimesLine at 808-8463 and press * 5721. In 805 area code, call (818) 808-8463.