BUZZ BANDS

Election year’s political Coup

With this year’s album “Pick a Bigger Weapon,” veteran Bay Area rap group the Coup has refined the art of turning dissidence into a dance party. Anthems for the oppressed, manifestos for the disadvantaged, broadsides for the Bush administration -- frontman Boots Riley delivers them with signature humor over thick, funky grooves. Think Parliament at a political convention.

Riley spent much of 2006 on two major tours, lobbing his system-bashing lyric bombs at booty-shaking audiences everywhere, but he isn’t feeling euphoric over the turnaround in the midterm elections. “Are the Democrats gonna stop the war? I don’t necessarily think so,” Riley says. “Unfortunately, people are going to relax. What they need to do is go out and make some real music in the world.”

That call to activism has been present on each of the Coup’s five albums. On “Weapon,” the group’s first for Epitaph Records imprint Anti-, it’s married to more musicality than ever, the result, Riley says, of familiarizing himself with his new studio “and having some great musicians to work with.”

Talib Kweli and the Roots’ Black Thought, as well as Silk E and guitarist Tom Morello, are among the collaborators. But it is Riley who keeps the lyrics relevant. “People want things that address their everyday reality,” he says, “and that goes for stuff that isn’t political -- with singer-songwriter music, people want things that touch them.”

The Coup appears tonight (with the equally politically charged indie hip-hop artist Mr. Lif) at the Knitting Factory.

Mojo in the Motor City

You might say the debut from Detroit quintet the Silent Years is a true holiday album -- it was recorded at Michigan’s Rustbelt Studios during downtime over Thanksgiving and Christmas 2005. Not that “The Silent Years,” released in October, is a rush job.

The band sharpened its chops by first recording dozens of demos. The music that emerged straddles the line between indie rock and power pop, with soaring melodies, precise guitar work and Josh Epstein’s vocals (think a less anguished Gary Puckett, if you remember the ‘60s) folded into distinctly modern arrangements.

“I think we’ve given up on trying to sound like anything -- we want the songs to go in the direction they want to go,” says Epstein, 24. “It’s not like we’re from a place where every couple years a band breaks and then other bands start sounding similar. It’s the blessing of being in a smaller-market city; we’ve kind of grown uninfluenced.”

That growth has been slow sits well with Epstein and bandmates Pat Michalak, Rosalind Christian and brothers Jonathan and Jeremy Edwards. They passed on a chance to hook up with Warner Music’s feeder label Cordless and instead put the album out on Minneapolis-based indie No Alternative Records.

“This just felt like the right way to do it,” Epstein says.

The Silent Years plays the Echo tonight, along with local fun bunch Los Abandoned.

Fast forward

* Touts: Mutemath and Cute Is What We Aim For headline tonight at the Key Club, with the undercard featuring sets from four Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands winners (who won Guitar Center swag and berths on the Vans Warped Tour). Best bet among those: Ludo, now signed to Island Records.... Saturday’s show lineup feels like an armload of holiday gifts: swoon-worthy Canadians the Dears play the El Rey Theatre; pop wizards the Format are wedged onto the bill at the Gibson Amphitheatre; IMA Robot brings its dance party to the Viper Room; and the beautifully meditative Sea Wolf headlines the Troubadour.... Britain’s Jim Noir, whose Barsuk Records debut “Tower of Love” couples retro-pop harmonizing and electro-pop eclecticism, hits L.A. for shows Tuesday at Safari Sam’s and Wednesday at Club NME at Spaceland.... FourGoodMen -- with good resumes -- visit the Knitting Factory on Monday; the new group brings together Simple Minds founding members Derek Forbes and Mick MacNeil, Bruce Watson of Big Country and Ian Donaldson, who once sang in a band with Creation Records’ Alan McGee.... And here’s an idea whose time has come: Bicycle Thief/Thelonious Monster mastermind Bob Forrest on Friday plays the first in a weekly series of four happy-hour shows. Set time is 5:30 p.m. at the Silverlake Lounge.

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Recommended downloads

* Download the Coup’s “My Favorite Mutiny” (explicit language) at www.epitaph.com/artists/album/470.

* Download the Silent Years’ “Devil Got My Woman” or stream “No Secrets” at www.myspace.com/thesilentyears.