There’s Substance Behind Dandy Warhols

Naming a single from a major label debut titled “Not If You Were the Last Junkie On Earth” is an easy trick, a publicity coup from the starting line. The next big step, if you’re the Dandy Warhols, is living up to the subsequent hoopla: the decadent glam image, being called the best British band from America--and that ridiculous name.

Playing the Troubadour on Tuesday, the quartet from Portland, Ore., managed to prove itself more than a brooding fashion band by delivering a shot of dreamy, dark, Stone Roses-meets-Velvet Underground sounds from its debut, “. . . The Dandy Warhols Come Down.”

Combining the low-key sexiness of singer Courtney Taylor’s laid-back vocals with swirling synthesizers and iconoclastic guitars, the Dandy Warhols showed off their musical talent, even if their stage presence occasionally felt cool and distant.

Further sinking the narcotic effect of its delivery, the group’s sound was not always entirely original. One spaceship synthesizer drone--from the ‘60s-ish “Boys Better”--was directly lifted from Sweet’s “Fox on the Run.” But the familiarity of some of the sounds was forgivable for the surprising combinations the band pulled off, from accelerated dance-pop paired with floaty psychedelic keyboards, to darker raunch-rock revving underneath sugary bubble gum.

By the time the group had launched into the Beach Boys-ish “Last Junkie,” with its standout line “I never thought you’d be a junkie because heroin is so passe,” the Dandy Warhols had already delivered a set that proved that they are far more than brilliant media strategists.