Tasty Morsels From the Flavor and Willoughby

The Flavor (*** 1/2) “The Flavor” Superfriction

Willoughby “Be Better Soon” (*** 1/2) Fuzz Harris

It’s almost axiomatic that, on the Orange County grass-roots rock scene, there is no profit in being a pop-leaning alternative band that pays little or no heed to the styles that have a substantial, ready-made audience hereabout: punk, blues, ska, ‘50s retro and various combinations thereof.

Just ask Ann De Jarnett, Eggplant, Eli Riddle, Mark Davis or Standard Fruit, a few of the world-class pop-rockers who have emerged here only to be submerged here without getting their due.

Still, good bands in this durable mode keep sprouting. We can sympathize with their likely lot as prophets without profit in their own backyards, but we’re not about to let them remain prophets without honor.

The only bad thing that can be said about the tasty debut CD from the Flavor is that this young Orange County band was forced to engage in some unfortunate name-dropping. When it emerged last year, the four-man lineup called itself Homer, a great band name redolent of epic poetry, baseball and “The Simpsons.” But “Homer” got dropped when an English band turned up with a prior claim on the name, and compared with it, “The Flavor” tastes sort of bland.

But it is descriptive of the music. To engage in some name-dropping of our own, the Flavor calls to mind a host of rewarding British, Australian and European pop-rockers, from the Smiths and the Cure to the Go-Betweens, the Jazz Butcher and Bettie Serveert.

Like them, the Flavor embraces melody and melancholy in music that’s usually warm and wistful but can also hit with surprising garage-rocking punch. The drumming seems a tad loose and creaky at first, but as the music sinks in, it registers as an apt component of the band’s offhanded, low-fi charm. Oasis fans who can do without the polish should like this stuff too.

The Flavor is a highly collaborative band, with all four members contributing to the writing and three of them taking lead vocals. Members Martin Borsanyi, Jahsper Charles, Roberto Escobar and Jason Robbins are clearly in sync, and the 14-track CD has a strong internal cohesion to go with good musical variety as it traces the unraveling of relationships and the shaking of youthful innocence.

Guitarist Borsanyi and drummer Jahsper (as he’s billed) make a fine, complementary vocal team. Borsanyi has a grainy, chesty voice that has a little nasal, wizened, circa-1967 Ray Davies in it. It’s perfect for conveying the characters he portrays, who are in the ironic position of having few illusions about the romantic messes they find themselves in, yet still maintain an openhearted longing for connection.

Borsanyi captures this perfectly on the opener, “Make Me Stay,” an indelible pop tune that ends on a note of simultaneous yearning and bitterness as he addresses a deeply flawed lover, declaring “I want to stay”--first with plaintive urgency, then with a chagrined snarl.

“Alcoholics Unanimous,” with lyrics by Borsanyi and furtive, Euro-cabaret-style music by bassist Escobar, nicely captures the pull of the erotic and the fears that come with it. Borsanyi addresses another lover who has great allure but even greater flaws that include a tendency to smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish:

Rug-burned, my rugged youth

My hands and face are wet with you.

We tasted ecstasy,

But I’m losing all that’s left of me

Here with you.

Jahsper, by contrast, is a voice of innocence, his tenor a plaintive, puppyish yelp as he tries to cling to fraying security blankets in such songs as the winsome “She Saves the Whales.” Faced with onrushing adulthood and estrangement from his childhood sweetheart, Jahsper, poignantly trying to stave off the inevitable, pleads with her to join him for a day at Disneyland, where:

It’s just like we were little kids again

We’re not pretendin’ that we’re ready

To be livin’ in the next world.

By the album’s end, on the acoustic ballad “So Many Things,” Jahsper is ready to move on sorrowfully but without bitterness, experience gained but a good chunk of his youthful innocence and idealism still intact.

Other highlights include “Seamus,” a rockin’ Irish jig written and sung by guitarist Robbins, and “Caroline,” a slice of pop perfection that exemplifies the Flavor’s knack for memorable melodic hooks and crafty, scene-shifting song construction.

The Flavor’s approach isn’t about big statements and commanding gestures. This band sings about what it has experienced directly and comes across as a little engine that could--and already has.

Willoughby’s new release gives pop-rock fans a chance to catch up with one of the most accomplished bands on the local scene. It’s the Long Beach band’s first compact disc, compiling two cassettes issued in 1995--the album-length “Be Better Soon,” which made my year-end local Top 10, and the EP, “Interim.”

Singer-songwriter Mike Flanagan is a striking talent whose reedy, grainy, full-bodied voice is like a more alert and intense version of the Lemonheads’ Evan Dando.

Elvis Costello’s tunefulness and full-bore passion, ensemble playing that can recall the brawny side of R.E.M. and a winsome folk-rock knack all come into play.

There’s plenty to relish on these 17 alternately anguished and affirming tracks (one a faithful reading of Pink Floyd’s classic riffy dream-rocker, “Fearless”). The masterpiece--a word not used lightly--is “Borrow My Shoulder,” a warm but never sentimentalized song that is as strong and moving a depiction of the complexities of sibling love as I’ve ever heard.

(“The Flavor” is available from Superfriction Records, 2207 N. Beachwood Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90068, or (888) 602-0149. e-mail: Superf@adnc.com.)

(“Be Better Soon” is available from Fuzz Harris Records, 2629 Manhattan Ave., No. 226, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254. (310) 805-5523.)

* The Flavor, the Third Verse and the Manavelins play Thursday at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. 8 p.m. $8-$10. (714) 957-0600.

* Willoughby opens for the Customers and Wintersberg on Thursday at Club 369, 1641 N. Placentia Ave., Fullerton. 9 p.m. $5. (714) 572-1816.

Ratings range from * (poor) to **** (excellent), with *** denoting a solid recommendation.