The finalists

Three bands, three very different sounds. So who's going to take top honors at tonight's 28th annual WBCN Rock 'n' Roll Rumble? Like we know. But we did come up with a cheat sheet to keep the players straight:

With clicky guitars and a lean, efficient rhythm section drawn straight from the early Cars playbook, Scamper hits the sweet spot where power pop and Top 40 new wave intersect. Genial and generous with praise for the bands they faced on the way to the Rumble finals (with bassist Brendan Clarke especially vocal about how good their polar opposites We're All Gonna Die were), the band members combine a strong stage show -- replete with natty suits and the occasional dance number -- with pleasing vocals that would surely win swoons from fans too young to get into the venues Scamper currently plays.

This band comes into the finals as this year's wild-card pick, which puts it on the same footing as last year's winner, Reverend Glasseye. Intellectual enough that fans have been known to throw books onstage during performances (paperbacks, mostly), the six-piece boasts a few concept band trappings. (The members boast names like The Brick and Falconer Model 7, and the band bio plays up time-travel shtick.) Regardless, the two-keyboard attack fuels hard-hitting synth-rock that allows C4(RT) to sidestep the limitations of gimmickry.

The local equivalent of the New Pornographers, with more emphasis on pub-rock and old-school R&B than pop and art-rock, the Rudds feature two powerhouse vocalists leading a quartet of musicians (including members of the Brett Rosenberg Problem and Papas Fritas) who seem able to play anything from snarling, raucous rave-ups to supple seductions. John Powhida and Andrea Gillis make fine vocal foils for each other. Her bluesiness prevents him from lapsing into parody, while Powhida's falsetto squeal and rock howl spur Gillis to be ever more dramatic and sensual just to keep up.

MARC HIRSH