Inouk NO DANGER (Say Hey)

This young New York quintet haven’t quite decided which of that city’s healthy (and hyped) rock scenes they want to be a part of. Listen to the right track from No Danger, Inouk’s full-length debut after a well-received EP from earlier this year, and you’ll think singers/guitarists Damon and Alexander McMahon and their band mates are reaching toward tight-trousered neo-garage ("What I Want"), spacy post-punk melancholia ("No Danger"), or coyly androgynous dance punk ("Victory"). But though they do fine by each of these subgenres, Inouk are at their best, and their most distinctive, when they end up somewhere in the middle, as on the pretty, deliberately paced "Elected," which refigures trippy West Coast folk rock for Manhattan’s darkest canyons, and "With the Birds," a mid-tempo rocker that’s cut from the cloth the Beatles wove in tunes like "I Want You (She’s So Heavy)." The McMahons can sing harmony as well as you’d expect brothers to, but they’re more impressive when they loosen up; on "Island," one of them holds down the melody while the other darts around it in a high, quavery voice reminiscent of Geddy Lee’s.

(Inouk appear this Saturday, September 25, at T.T. the Bear’s Place, 10 Brookline Street in Central Square, with the Mobius Band and Seneca; call 617-492-BEAR.)