POP MUSIC REVIEW : Imagining Yellow Suns Regroup at Bogart’s in an Aggressive Rock-Out

LONG BEACH —  Imagining Yellow Suns went through a puzzlingly quiet breakup last fall in which the grounds for divorce were so obscure that the Orange County band couldn’t even make them clear to its disappointed record company, Dr. Dream.

The patched-up Suns’ return to action Friday night at Bogart’s was anything but quiet. It was a noisy, aggressive rock-out, chocked with new material that the four members have developed since they regrouped about two months ago.

All that noise was heartening. When IYS emerged in 1988, its promise lay in its ability to unite two extremes of the rock spectrum. The band could muster the pounding drive and wailing guitar screech of such punk-influenced alternative rock leaders as the Meat Puppets. But unlike many alternative rockers, who tend to suffer from varying degrees of vocal ineptitude, IYS boasted three singers who could harmonize like a glee club in clear, strong voices.

With an arsenal like that, the Suns were able to exploit a wide range of influences that included ‘60s psychedelic rock, folk music and the stately-and-spacey progressive rock architecture of Pink Floyd, early Yes and the baroque side of the Beatles.

As Imagining Yellow Suns developed last year into one of the strongest club draws on the local scene, it unfortunately toned down the noise and turned into a more polished, less combustible act. Its debut album, “Imagining Yellow Suns,” was enjoyable and extremely well-crafted but it sacrificed the head-on raucousness that was so appealing when the band first emerged.

At Bogart’s, the raucousness was back. On a number of songs the music careened out of the proverbial rock ‘n’ roll garage. “Lighter Than Air,” one of the six new numbers that made up half the 70-minute show, hammered with a dirty, metallic edge that recalled Iggy Pop’s old band, the Stooges. With his leaping, thrashing performing style, lead guitarist Steve Cross was the focal point for IYS’s most blazing moments. Bassist Tim Bugge and barefoot drummer Rob Fadtke provided both muscle and instrumental dexterity.

The early, Syd Barrett-led Pink Floyd was a pioneer of garage-rock as art music, and IYS clearly has taken its example to heart. Another new song, “Any Old Day,” had the wildness, pop hooks and strange, ironic tone of Barrett’s Floyd. A bit later, the Suns swung into “Lucifer Sam,” one of the early Pink Floyd’s bizarre pop gems.

The Suns’ delicate, progressive-rock side came out on the album cuts “Are You There?” and “Journey From the Sun.”

The vocal harmony blend between Bugge, Cross and the strong tenor voice of Ed Bernard wavered at times--few bands venture so much complex high-register singing, and IYS didn’t always sustain its voice power in those passages.

The show also displayed IYS’ determination to be conceptual and address large existential mysteries, but it didn’t always succeed at that, either.

The concert included a long pause at mid-set, when the stage was blanketed in fog while a spacey tape loop played. During this break, IYS changed its clothes--Cross emerging in a Samurai robe, Bugge in a Victorian English toff’s bowler hat and long coat over baggy pajamas, and Bernard in a floppy hat and red paisley pants that made him look like a hippie Johnny Appleseed. Interesting--but why break up the show in the middle like that? If the band was trying to make a point about transformation of character, nothing in the music or staging backed that up. The presentation helped create an air of mystery but that should be a mood-setting starting point, not an end in itself.

IYS’s more nebulous lyrical conceits also need to be better focused. One pretentious new number had Bugge repeatedly singing, “Do you feel the paradox of time?”

By regrouping, IYS at least is giving itself a fair chance to hone what needs to be honed and to deliver on its considerable promise. Imagining Yellow Suns’ next local show is May 23 at the Marquee’s Club Tangent.