Manchester Bands Gain Toehold in U.S. : Although a force in British rock, the punk-like sound has trouble getting much airplay here. Still, Stone Roses, Charlatans UK’s and Happy Mondays are gaining favor.

Manchester, England’s psychedelic-accented dance-rock scene still hasn’t made much commercial impact in this country, but it continues to be a dominant force in British rock.

Even though the Stone Roses--the city’s most important band--were largely inactive during 1990, Manchester groups figured prominently in year-end critics’ polls in key British publications.

The vitality of the Manchester scene--a working-class pop revolution that draws equally from rock, funk and dance influences--has been compared widely in Britain to the punk uprising of the late ‘70s. A New Musical Express critic, in fact, recently described the Roses as the new Clash and Happy Mondays as the new Sex Pistols.

So, why haven’t those and other Manchester bands done better in the United States?

It may be a case of history repeating itself.

The long defunct Sex Pistols and the Clash are now regarded in the United States as landmark bands. Rolling Stone magazine critics in 1987 voted the Pistols’ “Never Mind the Bollocks . . .” as the second-best album of the last 20 years and the Clash’s “London Calling” as one of the top 15 albums of the period.

But rock radio in the United States was so stubbornly anti-punk in the late ‘70s that neither the Pistols nor the Clash was able to get enough airplay for their early albums to crack the Top 100 sales list.

With rock radio equally conservative today, the Stone Roses’ richly appealing debut album was only able to reach the 80s on the pop charts earlier this year, and no other album from a Manchester band has done even that well.

But there is reason for optimism.

The Charlatans UK’s “Some Friendly” album has been a huge hit on college/alternative rock radio for weeks and Happy Mondays’ new album is also gaining favor on those stations--possibly building a foundation that could give the Stone Roses just the momentum the band needs to explode commercially when it returns with its second album late this spring.

Four Manchester bands--Happy Mondays, James, Inspiral Carpets and the Charlatans UK--are included in this look at some of the relatively new British bands that did well in the year-end polls in England. Albums of special merit are marked with a .

The Beloved’s “Happiness” (Atlantic)--More dance-rock-synth-dance-pop from London. You couldn’t have come up with a smoother mix of moody, New Order dance tension and Pet Shop Boys pop sensibilities if you had filtered the music through a magical musical computer. Then again, maybe you could have. Some of the tracks work well enough to make you want to keep an ear on the Beloved (the latest Pet Shop album would have benefited from a bit of the zest of “Scarlet Beautiful”), but the band needs to take more risks.

The Charlatans UK’s “Some Friendly” (Beggars Banquet/RCA)--”Some Friendly” serves up many of the appealing youthful themes, psychedelic haze, jangling guitar color and funk-rock grooves of the Stone Roses--a year after the Roses’ own album. While reasonable enough on its own, the music doesn’t offer enough originality to make you look forward the group’s next album as much as make you long even more than before for the next Roses album. The group will be at San Diego State University’s Montezuma Hall on Feb. 14 and at UCLA’s Ackerman Ballroom on Feb. 15.

Happy Mondays’ “Pills ‘N’ Thrills and Bellyaches” (Elektra)--The Sex Pistols reference is dusted off and applied to some maverick new band every six months in Britain, the way the “new Dylan” tag was once applied in this country to every new singer-songwriter of note. In this case, the Pistols line is at once totally misleading and absolutely correct. The Mondays’ trance-like, dance-rock sound is nothing like the Pistols’ buzz saw punk, but there’s the same edge of anarchy in the group’s approach: a total disrespect for pop form and rock convention. The beauty of the album and the band is in the Mondays’ willingness to be hated--or adored.

James’ ‘Gold Mother” (Fontana/PolyGram)--On the scene for quite a while, James is the only band on the list that includes a lyric sheet--a sure tip-off that the group likes to deal with issues. And they’re here: social matters (government deceit, power-hungry evangelists) and personal concerns (loneliness and troubled relationships). Kind of tuneful, but rarely illuminating.

Inspiral Carpets’ “Life” (Elektra)--Here’s a band that could win any ‘60s psychedelic revival contest hands-down. But does anyone really care in the ‘90s? The challenge is to do what the Roses and Mondays do: Take old influences and filter them through a new perspective, providing creative tension. With the Carpets, there is little perspective, hence little tension.