ALIENS, AUGIE MARCH, KATE JOHNSON
(Crocodile) The electronic-tinged space-rock on the Aliens’ Astronomy for Dogs is pretty much what you’d expect from a Beta Band offshoot. You’ve got jaunty tempos, quirky songs about robots, and a sense that the songwriters’ core fan base is somewhere on the moons of Jupiter. Like a 1960s pop act, they feel the need to frequently announce their name (“We are the Aliens!”); like sci-fi dorks, they find it necessary to make existential proclamations like “I am the unknown.” Sharing the bill, and counterbalancing the mood with a solid terra-firma rooting, is Australia’s Augie March. Dramatically dishing the romantic melancholia like Damien Rice and Jeff Buckley will undoubtedly incite swooning from the crowd, but the band’s dense sound and fierce buildups give equal time the visceral side of humanity. JOHN VETTESE