Ash, Britt Daniel

Here's a casually bizarre bill that should appeal to those pop fans who don't consider the vehement packaging of catchy melodies and untucked shirts a reason to buy more stuff. Irish pop-punks Ash and Spoon front man Britt Daniel have both encountered a good deal of record-biz misanthropy--Ash must know more A&R guys than Wilco, and Daniel once authored a bilious two-sided single about one of them--but the lack of royal treatment seems to have served each act well. Ash's latest, Free All Angels (which has just received a U.S. issue by New York's usually-dance-affiliated Kinetic Records a year after its original English release), is an unassuming blast of sweet-and-sour guitar majesty that only comes down from the clouds when it toys with the wack electronica edgy British bands are always experimenting with; the record's good-hearted failures are like worksheets from How to Not Make a Popular Record 101, which sound really great when you realize how claustrophobic ambition can be. Spoon's fourth album, Kill the Moonlight, due next month, is more of the Austin band's handsome pop-rock, with an added emphasis on the minimalist blue-eyed soul Daniel brought to last year's fine Girls Can Tell; it's a bitter little pill that righteously skips the sweetening. Even in this stripped-down, radio-sponsored solo setting, expect some stares when you yell out for the radio hits. As if there are any.