BUZZ BANDS

The boys from Oz

Not until his quartet Youth Group visited England this year had singer-guitarist Toby Martin ever heard of the Manchester group James. Nor had Martin ever been told of the uncanny resemblance between his vocals and those of James’ Tim Booth.

But there it is on the Australian foursome’s debut, “Skeleton Jar” (just out on Epitaph): driving melodies, poignant lyrics and the type of achingly soaring vocals that earned James (“Born of Frustration,” 1992, and “Laid,” ’93) comparisons to the Smiths. “It’s funny,” Martin says, “because none of us ever really listened to James.”

Youth Group got its start in Sydney as purveyors “of sprawling, 7-minute songs,” Martin says. “Now our songs have gotten more concise, maybe more poppy.”

But no less emotional. The album’s anthem, “Shadowland,” explores the “time between when you finish college and the rest of your life,” says Martin, who with bandmates Danny Allen, Cameron Emerson-Elliot and Patrick Matthews performs tonight at Spaceland.

“We’re not really melancholic guys,” Martin says. “I do tend to write songs when I feel down or ticked off. It’s kind of an escape from things to sink myself into the music.”

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Waxing rhapsodic

Grey DeLisle is in an enviable position: The L.A.-based singer-songwriter, whose fifth album, “Iron Flowers,” was released last week, is the rare performer who can do just about anything she wants -- even, as it turns out, recording a country version of Queen’s classic “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

DeLisle was on a train in the Netherlands with producer (and frequent collaborator) Martin Etzioni when the inspiration hit. “We both had always thought it was a country song at heart,” she says. “The lyrics, if you stay away from the opera, they really are country lyrics.”

Live, DeLisle makes the song completely her own. “Some people don’t know it’s that song until the end,” she says, “and some people break into applause after the first line.”

DeLisle celebrates the album’s release with a show at 7 p.m. Friday at Martin Iron Design (10750 Cumpston St., North Hollywood).

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High on Brooklyn

You wonder where 23-year-old Eric Elbogen is coming from, what with his cheeky band name, Say Hi to Your Mom, and out-of-left-field song titles such as “Recurring Motifs in Historical Flirtings,” “The Forest Scares the Hell Out of Me” and “I Think I’ll Be a Good Ghost.”

He would tell you, matter-of-factly, that he’s coming from a modest apartment in Brooklyn, where he hatched the fizzy electro-pop on his third album, “Ferocious Mopes” (released on his own Euphobia label). It’s the place that stimulated his wry musings five years ago after he moved from his native North Hollywood.

“I needed to move out of L.A. to get into the head space I needed to be in,” Elbogen says. “Could I have written these songs in L.A.? Well, the details would be different; I’d probably be talking about traffic on the 405 rather than hipster culture on the L train. But each city has its contributions to the mundane.”

Say Hi plays tonight at the Echo.

-- Kevin Bronson, with Jeff Miller