Mid 1996, and the ballot reads: "can the British maintain the momentum established in 1995 that put them back in the vanguard of fresh, exciting pop rock?" Based on the following early returns, the answer is yes, maybe, and no. One factor is decisive: the band names could certainly use a little work.

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WHIPPING BOY
Heartworm ****
(Columbia/Sony)

If you've been wondering whatever happened to the British, post-punk new-wave sound of the 80s, look no further. Turns out it was concentrated, freeze-dried and stored for a decade, only to be fully reconstituted within the grooves of Whipping Boy's Heartworm.

At various times, this Dublin band invokes Joy Division ("Users"), The Cure ("Blinded"), The Chameleons ("The Honeymoon Is Over"), and New Model Army ("Fiction"). The mournful, self-flagellating tone to the vocals also sometimes reminds me of former Call vocalist Michael Been's solo work. Still, a wild glint of Irish in the eye saves Whipping Boy from the dour excesses all these performers tend to indulge in.

Heartworm starts off catchy if somewhat formulaic until partway through third track "Tripped," one of the most jaw-droppingly cool guitar blasts this decade bursts out of the speakers like the nemesis from Aliens and, well...rips your jaw off before it has a chance to hit the floor. Record label Sony has already lined-up three singles and videos from the album - incredibly, none of them are this song, which has the clear potential of following in the path of Radiohead's "Creep" as a left-field hit.

From this glorious noise on, Whipping Boy frees itself from any self-imposed chains. "We Don't Need Nobody Else" plays on the shamanistic poet approach of Van Morrison and Luka Bloom, with spoken verses, emotively sung choruses, and a narrator who alternates between visionary redemptive and base abuser. Ballad "Personality" floats its minor keys on a salving orchestral wash, prepping the way for the disc's majestic closing aces. After the disc has danced throughout on the dark knife-edge of human relationships, "Morning Rise" concludes the proceedings on a note of bitter-sweet optimism, tender lyrics like "It's in your eyes a fire that's wild and glorious/uninhibited, unfinished in everything I do" off-set by intimations of mortality and a Sgt. Pepper-ish production. Some thirty seconds after the cellos fade, bonus track "Natural" rings in a touching spoken-word narration, the protagonist battling to overcome schizophrenia and his inability to commit to relationships.

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SPACEHOG
Resident Alien ***
(Sire/Warner)

British but based in New York, Spacehog's publicity material would have you believe the group resurrects the glam heyday of vintage Bowie and Mott The Hoople (even disingeniously referring to them as "the band who fell to earth"). It's all well and good to set your sights high, but the hype creates expectations that Resident Alien is incapable of delivering, despite the blatant Ziggy Stardust vocal inflections of "Starside" and "Zeroes." There's no doubt that this awkwardly-named combo attack their chosen retro-Glam vocation with panache, flash, and good humor, but there's ultimately not a lot of substance behind the theatrical pose and fat Gibson runs. With few exceptions (there's no denying the preening bulls-eye of "Never Coming Down") the songwriting tends to be fairly frothy. Still, I'd take a dose of Resident Alien any day over yet another cold dish of serious, mystically dour, faux-acid rock Doors/Led Zep wannabes. Ironically, by homogenizing the Brit-Glam sound in their manner, Spacehog may just succeed in bridging to Australian and U.S.audiences who often have difficulty relating to the "Britishness" of the latest U.K. wave.

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THE AUTEURS
After Murder Park **
(Virgin/EMI)

On third album After Murder Park, the pretentiously-monikered Auteurs fancy themselves the bridge between the thinking man's Blur school of modern Brit-pop and a vintage proto-Glam band. It is ultimately a contrived illusion. The band's creative processes are transparent: "rather than let this chorus' conventional pop structure progress as expected, we'll throw in some dissonant twists to show how inventive we are." The seams are obvious, "Insert Odd Sounds Here" in bold aural lettering. Vocalist/guitarist Luck Haines comes on with disaffected swagger and attempted social import of a more contemporary Ray Davies by way of Steve Harley's Cockney Rebel, but his lyrics, while showing the occasional clever turn, are simply not up to the task. The further you delve into the disk, the more tiresome the effort gets as the stage makeup peels away in great, greasy gobs. That being said, a couple of numbers come close to redeeming the project: "Unsolved Child Murder" and the thematically "reply song" title track actually make the Davies affection work, withd elicate, finely-drawn melodies and a truly sad story.