POP MUSIC REVIEW : Distinctive, High-Decibel Buffalo Tom

“I think it’s gonna be real loud,” was the mantra de jour at Club Lingerie on Thursday, offered independently and unsolicited--and with equal measures of hope and fear--by several people as the Boston band Buffalo Tom prepared to play. They asked for it, they got it: decibels in spades, as only a modern-American-alternative-post-Husker-Du-power-trio can serve up.

Frankly, such bands are a dime a dozen these days. What gives these young Tom cats a leg up is that they’re one of a handful that can actually write songs , in the noble tradition of Husker and the genre’s current rising stars, Dinosaur Jr. (whose J. Mascis co-produced the Tom’s new “Birdbrain” album).

For the first portion of the hourlong set the trio seemed not quite up to those standards. But by the end of the show the avalanche-of-sound generated by guitarist Bill Janovitz, bassist Chris Colbour and especially drummer Tom Maginnis was distinctive enough that a fierce encore of the Rolling Stones’ “Rocks Off” sounded like it could have been one of the trio’s own numbers. And some of its own songs would have even sounded fine in a quiet presentation. Not that we got a chance to find out.

While Buffalo Tom starts its work with massive dBs, the Blake Babies--another Boston-area band that shared the bill Thursday--worked in the other direction, pumping up clever, attractive tunes with dense guitar-rock force. The effect was like New England’s answer to Olde England’s Sundays and Lush, with the brittle melodic qualities of the former (thanks to singer and principal songwriter Juliana Hatfield) and the aural rush of the latter. Judging from the number of major-label scouts on hand to see the currently independent band, this is a band we’ll be hearing more from soon.