Dogs show they're a different breed

That Dogs Die in Hot Cars sound like XTC is almost indisputable now. Type the two band names into Google and you'll get thousands of hits. It's not just the uncanny resemblance between the voices of Craig Macintosh and Andy Partridge. The similarities seep so deeply into the quirky songs on DDHC's debut ''Please Describe Yourself" that a plausible theory could be put forth that the band is simply XTC in disguise.

They are, however, quite different, as Monday's show at the Paradise demonstrated. For one thing, the Glasgow band embraced live performance, something Partridge's stage fright nixed for XTC. Dogs Die frontman Macintosh, whose singing also echoed 1980s bands Icicle Works, Haircut 100, and When in Rome, was comfortable enough to be left alone onstage with an acoustic guitar for a Billy Bragg-like number in the middle of the set.

Second, most of the songs were twisty affairs that sometimes seemed too precious for their own good. The best ones -- like the hooky, ska-inflected ''I Love You Cause I Have To" and ''Somewhat Off the Way," with its catchy but wordless refrain -- were the simplest. Macintosh did most of the heavy lifting; keyboardist Ruth Quigley and guitarist Gary Smith contributed harmonies reminiscent of the Crash Test Dummies. But with the exception of a brief but brilliant solo in ''Godhopping," Smith stayed in the background, while Quigley's energetic presence was hampered by being relegated to the back of the stage and off to the side.

Regardless, the audience was appreciative, though the crowd thinned out dramatically after Phoenix finished its set. Hailing from Paris, the band was hard to pin down stylistically. It drew from synth pop, psychedelia, jam bands, and Talking Heads-style funk without really sounding like any of those. That elusiveness could have proven deadly, but the band settled into a devastating confidence a few songs in, at one point simply grooving on a single chord to the accompaniment of the crowd's hand-claps.

The show was opened by Manchester, England's Longview, whose echoey, textural guitar pop recalled the Church and Sigur Rós -- or Oasis's ''Champagne Supernova" without the hooks or drama.

Dogs Die in Hot Cars
With Phoenix and Longview
At: the Paradise, Monday