The Bravery tests its mettle

It's called the hype, the buzz, the noise. It is what almost every band is dying for and what most don't live up to. For every Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs there's a Ned's Atomic Dustbin. This time around, the hype is about the Bravery.

While the band is a relative unknown in America, this New York outfit has already conquered Europe and now looks primed to do the same here. Rolling Stone picked the Bravery as a band to watch. And it's getting some major airplay across the country for the single ''An Honest Mistake" as well as other tracks. The band plays Axis tonight.

The Bravery has finally released its major label debut here -- a brash record of doomy, booming dance rock, a throwback to '80s post-punk mixed with new wave and updated with millennial sheen. If you think you've heard these references before -- think Franz Ferdinand, the Futureheads, Razorlight -- you have. All products of the hype.

''It gives us something to prove -- are we worth all the fuss?" says the Bravery's lead singer Sam Endicott. ''I think we are, but I'd like to take a breath to know that this is real. We don't want to be flashes in the pans."

To illustrate Endicott's frenetic pace these days, he says that he had no idea an interview was scheduled and randomly answered his cellphone while he was shopping for groceries in a New York deli. ''That's news to me, but I haven't stopped doing this kind of stuff for the last few months, so if you don't mind me picking fruit while we talk, let's go," he says, laughing as cash registers chime in the background. ''I'm getting used to multitasking in order to survive."

For pop music fans jaded about so many acts heralded as the next big thing, the question is: Are these guys any good? The record is solid, with a vibrant clash of guitars and electronics that lean heavily toward the dance floor. Endicott's vocals are more expressive than some of his peers'. Oh yeah, they do dress nice and spiffy in tailored outfits, and they add the necessary snarls when needed, which makes them naturals for exposure on places like MTV2.

And at a recent live show in New York, they were simply electric. Their songs were penetrating and wildly propulsive, and the group showed complete command of the stage.

''They're a tasty band," says Oedipus, former program director at WBCN-FM and now national programming consultant for Infinity Broadcasting. ''What they do is take some of the more danceable rock sounds from the '80s from bands like New Order and put them in a new context. Of course, before we anoint them anything, we have to remember that they are still on the Paradise level and haven't proven anything to us yet. But there's definitely some substance there or we wouldn't be paying attention so closely."

Endicott adds that he and guitarist Michael Zakarin, bassist Mike H., keyboardist John Conway, and drummer Anthony Burulcich aren't out to reinvent the wheel, but they are willing to help shake up the rock scene.

''I think this is the beginning of a really cool period in music because what we've been living through has been mostly super-testosterone rock, and there's nothing wrong with testosterone but it is damn boring," he says. ''What we wanted to do was to write good rock songs but also make them danceable because we've gotten away from the groove and beat for some reason. That's the lifeblood of things when you strip it to the core."

The Bravery's members have been together for less than two years. But they've written songs and developed well-defined personas at a lightning pace. He and his mates are New Yorkers and now considered part of the revival of the city's rock scene, but it is Washington, D.C., where Endicott grew up, that he says has influenced what he wants to create more than anywhere else.

''The music I lived for was all the stuff from the Dischord label, the DIY things from Fugazi and Jawbox," he says. ''You can have virtually no money and still make something very beautiful. Everyone thinks that just because we got a major label deal and have this machinery behind us, that there must be something manufactured about us.

''That's not true and all part of the myths surrounding the band. That, and that there was a bidding war to sign us. I want to state on record right now: All of that that has appeared in Rolling Stone and other places is nonsense. We never put one label against another. We knew immediately that we would go with the one that would [expletive] with us the least."

So for the rest of the year, the Bravery has one mission, and that's to make believers out of stateside fans. It won't be easy.

''We have a lot to prove. You can be massive in the UK and play to 10 people in Kentucky. We're prepared for that, and all the people ready to throw beer bottles at our heads while screaming 'impress me.' "