‘90s Moves Down Pat : SMILE “ ‘masterlocks’+3” Revelation (***)

Smile hardly can be called a has-been. The Orange County alt-rock trio put out an enigmatic, varied and often-intriguing debut album in 1994, got signed by Atlantic and has a major-label follow-up due next spring.

But if things don’t work out the way the band members would like, there’s always the ‘90s-nostalgia covers circuit to fall back on. Give it another 10 or 15 years, when fans who grew up with Nirvana are pushing past 30. When it hits, Smile will be eminently qualified to play the modern-rock oldies.

This four-song EP touches several familiar bases on the stylistic playing field of alternative-rock. While Smile doesn’t forge a distinctive sound of its own with this admittedly narrow, 12-minute taste of its work, everything it plays shows a mastery of the methods that have made modern rock the big deal it is today.

The leadoff track, “Masterlocks,” is the sort of thing you’d play for Martians if they landed and said, “What is this ‘alternative rock’? Is it like ‘moon rock’?”

The band rattles and crashes the way hundreds of alt-rock bands learned to do from Husker Du records, its high energy balancing the nervous and sour musings of singer-guitarist Mike Rosas as he intones, “At the sunrise of my life, I think I’m on the floor.”

The ballad “She’s Acting” is a wistful plaint suitable for Pavement, Sebadoh or the Lemonheads. “Crispin Glover vs. Tom Snyder” attaches some Pixies/Frank Black-style absurdist celebrity myth-weaving to the dissonant, core-drilling guitar probes of Sonic Youth. “Bitter Suffers the Shyest” reaches further back, calling to mind the tense, dark, headlong sci-fi excursions of Syd Barrett’s early Pink Floyd days, adding the tonal density of Barrett’s modern-rock successors.

If Smile gets lucky, its absorption of some of the smartest alterna-rock moves could launch it to success in its own right. Then the nostalgia bands of 2010 will be covering Smile note for note, which beats the alternative. Maybe someday Eddie Van Halen will wish he really had produced this tasty little nugget, as Smile fancifully claims in the credits.

(Available from Revelation Records, P.O. Box 5232, Huntington Beach, CA 92615-5232; (714) 842-7584. e-mail: info@revhq.com.)

* Smile, Four and Star Seed play Dec. 19 at the Square One Brand apparel warehouse, 18242 W. McDurmott, Suite K, Irvine. 9 p.m. $3. (714) 852-1504.

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