BY STEVE MORLEY

It could have been any night in downtown Nashville. In a city where skilled, experienced musicians are stockpiled like so many cans of sardines in the Second Harvest Food Bank, one can find any number of perfectly competent and occasionally superb bands scattered throughout the metropolitan area and beyond. Mind you, this doesn't even account for traveling players who are passing through, eager to register a buzz in one of America's most revered musical centers. (In Music City, you just never know who might be in the crowd.) On Wednesday, April 21 at 12^th & Porter, virtually incognito amongst local bands teaming up on a multiple showcase bill, a guitar-based quartet out of Santa Barbara hovered for half an hour above the city's routine musical proficiency - not because its members could necessarily dethrone Nashville's A-team studio players (you have to drive the right brand of SUV and know a few producers to manage that), but because, collectively, they displayed that indefinable whatever-you-call-it that serves to remind that a great musical experience is about more than musicianship.

Loomis & the Lust, as the quartet in question is known, is a smart, lean and energetic band of twenty-somethings who look backwards through the lens of classic pop and rock while retaining a contemporary sound that steers blessedly clear of the dull guitar murk that passes for rock in the post-grunge era and vaults well past the soundalike mediocrity of indie-rock's ever-expanding purgatory. Leader and namesake Will Loomis is a canny and passionate student of music, citing Elvis (the first one), Prince, Iggy Pop, Led Zeppelin, Talking Heads, and Stax Records among his musical touchstones while casually conversing with a newfound fan after the band's invigorating set. Those aren't the names that would have instantly leapt to mind, though, as the band performed its punchy, succinctly constructed tunes, evoking the cream of early new-wave and punk and connecting the dots between the '60s and '80s while deftly sidestepping simplistic revivalist-pop territory. In the process, Loomis and his cohorts have cut away the nervous, adrenaline-laced elements often associated with punk-poppers, cranking out solid, groove-based rhythms that, in a subtle nod to Loomis' R&B/soul jones, leave some welcome space between the beats.

The band is made up of four distinct, complimentary personalities that, like rock's more memorable units, coalesce into a well-balanced whole that's a blast to watch. Bassist Noah Babcock's earnest, Cowsills-clean smile and Dee Dee Ramone kineticism are a yin-yang of affability and abandon, though abandon never undercuts his pounding low-end pulse or the practiced articulation visible in his thin, spidery fingers as they arch across the neck of his Fender Precision bass. Casey Hooper's calf-hugging jeans, archetypal rocker garb and dark, tousled hair merely top off a total package highlighted by limber, pigeon-toed guitar-god moves that would be total eye-rollers if they didn't come off so unforced and in the moment, or - more important - if they weren't knocked off in tandem with searing and pungent fretwork, all delivered with confidence that stops just this side of cocky.

Drummer Anthony Sonetti supplies sturdy, unobtrusive timekeeping with equal parts technical prowess and musical flair, while his distant, eye-shifting stare tells you he's intently absorbing everything that's happening onstage and certainly not scoping out babes in the crowd. (For that matter, all four musicians exude a sort of nice-guy trustworthiness in spite of the "lust" portion of the band's oddball moniker.) Charismatic frontman Loomis' blond beach-boy good looks, intelligent eyes and assured demeanor are offset by unselfconscious head bobs and an endearingly goofy grin, suggesting a lucid and grounded alternate version of Fast Times at Ridgemont High's pupil-dilated Jeff Spicoli. Wielding slightly modified white-boy rapper gestures mixed with fist pumps scaled down to nightclub size, Loomis cuts a clean and likable figure whose easy, unassuming manner belies his potential to graduate to rock-star status.

The overall effect of witnessing Loomis & the Lust in performance is more compelling than any of the individual songs the foursome currently offers. That isn't a bad thing - it signifies an honest-to-goodness band that isn't interested in simply being www.somebody's download of the week. The band's newer material is ample evidence that primary songwriter Will Loomis is just beginning to find the sweet spot among his myriad musical tastes. All that being said, though, the two-year-old band (whose present lineup is, stunningly, only months old) can already boast one bona fide pop A-lister, "Bright Red Chords." The two-and-a-half-minute song is an unabashed ode to the love of music - specifically, the analog variety. "Bright red chords, jet-black vinyl," Loomis sings, simultaneously addressing the tactile romance of a 33- or 45-rpm record and the intangible sonic delights contained within.

Talking about it is one thing, but emulating it is another thing entirely. Notably, "Bright Red Chords" succeeds in creating the experience of which it speaks, employing blasts of chunky guitar before shifting to an exuberant chorus propelled by sunny harmonies and a syncopated lift redolent of first-generation ska. "Dancing to the beat, the music is primal," he continues. If this particular number is a bit too breezy to qualify as primal - a word you tend to associate with early Kinks, '60s frat-rock or surely The Troggs - "primal" is nonetheless in the band's vocabulary. They proved this on a rousing and entirely irony-free cover of The Go-Gos' "We Got the Beat" as well as on a band original titled "A.D.D."

A salute to overdriven, adolescent-aimed hard rock that initially scans as an AC/DC send-up, "A.D.D." could ultimately become a youth anthem in its own right: it's a head-banging, only slightly tongue-in-cheek banner carrier for the short-attention-span generation to which anyone under 35, diagnosed or not, can likely relate. The band's Nashville show doubled as the scene for a live video shoot, footage from which is intended for the song's still-unfinished video. Currently circulating on YouTube is a distorted, hand-held-camera version of the guys playing "A.D.D." in Austin, where they also played SXSW, if you want to get the gist now, before something distracts the thought from your mind.

A few clicks away, you can find a clip of a doe-eyed five-year-old girl singing "Bright Red Chords" (that is, "bwight wed cawds") - even including the main guitar hook.  (See this and the A.D.D. videos, below. Meanwhile, click on this link to see footage from the actual Nashville show.) What that says to this writer, whose age is easily double that of the average person in the smallish but warmly responsive crowd at Loomis & the Lust's Nashville gig, is that this band has hit on something that potentially has massively broad appeal. (That is to say, songs that can be savored at face value even by listeners who are blissfully unaware of, or who couldn't care less about, this week's - oops, next week's - pop culture zeitgeist.) At least one other oldster spotted at the show would concur, and one with far more credibility: '60s pop star and former VH-1 host Peter "Herman" Noone, who could be seen grooving out in the back of the club along with his daughter, an aspiring singer who (as L & L's manager confirmed) happens to be a friend of Loomis and a fan of the band.

This is Nashville, after all, where something extraordinary can always happen... even on a run-of-the-mill Wednesday night.