STRONG LPS FROM ELOQUENT MANIACS, FIERY MEN

The Men They Couldn’t Hang.

10,000 Maniacs.

Those names sound like a Halloween double bill at a second-run movie house on Hollywood Boulevard--or maybe the lineup for the next punk show at Olympic Auditorium.

But they are, in fact, the names of exciting new rock bands that have come up with two of the year’s most appealing--and, despite the names, relatively mainstream--albums.

Instead of the punk or zany overtones suggested by its name, 10,000 Maniacs is a six-member band from western New York state that mixes the bright, highly emotional instrumental sweep of R.E.M. with the vocals of a singer who sounds as if she served her apprenticeship in an English folk group. The trademarks of the band’s new Elektra album, “The Wishing Chair,” are eloquence and a winsome, seductive grace.

The Men They Couldn’t Hang is a lively country/folk/rock outfit from England that combines the kick-up-your-heels zest of American “cowpunk” groups like Rank and File with the communal, grass-roots tradition of British and Irish pub bands. There’s a warm, uplifting spirit to the working-class tales of struggle and desire on its LP, “Night of a Thousand Candles” (on England’s Imp label).

Natalie Merchant, the 21-year-old lead singer of 10,000 Maniacs, sighs good-naturedly on the phone when two issues are raised. Yes, she indicated, she has been asked often about the seeming inappropriateness of the band’s name, and about the fact that she seems to have an English accent.

“Well, you’ve got to remember . . . we weren’t all that eloquent-- as you put it--when we began (in 1981),” she said. “We had no acoustic instruments then. We were completely electric and doing songs by bands like the Gang of Four and Joy Division.

“Even then, however, the name wasn’t entirely fitting. We used it mostly to sensationalize ourselves--to get people to come see us. When people did see us (later), they began assuming that we called ourselves 10,000 Maniacs for the irony involved. At any rate, it was too late to change it.”

About the English folk strains in her voice, Merchant added, “A lot of people do assume I’m from England because the people there seem to have a purer sound to their vowels, but it’s just that I studied voice for a few years and I was taught to enunciate letters, especially vowels. I don’t pinch my vowels the way most people do.”

Much like R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe, Merchant is an “effects” singer in that she treats her voice as an instrument in the band rather than interpreting lyrics with the careful, aggressive phrasing of a Rickie Lee Jones or Chrissie Hynde.

Unlike Stipe, however, she generally pronounces the words instead of merely slurring them so that they come across chiefly as mood portraits. Even so, there is an abstractness to her writing that forces you to study the lyric sheet to piece together a song’s meaning.

Again reminiscent of R.E.M., 10,000 Maniacs makes the elusiveness of its music seem richly enticing and warm rather than arty or pretentious. The key songs in the LP are stamped with both originality and heart, pushing the group to the forefront of the rich cadre of new U.S. rock bands.

The group, which uses considerable folk coloring in its arrangements, touches on a wide range of themes in its album: small-town restlessness in “Can’t Ignore the Train,” working-class reflections in “Maddox Table,” stormy confrontation in “Scorpio Rising” and political satire in “My Mother the War.”

“My Mother” was included on the group’s first album (released in 1983 on its own Christian Burial label) and attracted considerable attention for 10,000 Maniacs when it was released last year as a single in England.

In the opening lines, the song seems to celebrate the glamour of battle:

My mother the war

She’ll raise a shaft

Lift a banner

Toss a rose.

By the end, however, the tone has turned dark:

My mother the war

Well acquainted

With sorrow

With grief.

About the theme, Merchant (who co-wrote the words with Michael Walsh) said, “I’ve always been intrigued by propaganda songs from the ‘40s . . . things like ‘He’s 1-A in the Army and He’s A-1 in My Heart.’ That was the picture I had in mind for the song. It starts off glorifying war in a way--or at least glorifying going off to war, and then it turns around and shows the brutality.”

Merchant and her fellow band members--guitarists Robert Buck and John Lombardo, drummer Jerry Augustyniak, bassist Steve Gustafson and keyboardist Dennis Drew--were drawn together by the new-wave and post-punk music played on the local Jamestown, N.Y., college radio station.

“Except for John, we were all deejays on the station, and that music was our only link with modern culture,” Merchant said. “Most of the kids in town were just into the normal stuff you hear on the (commercial) radio, but this other music by bands like the Clash, the Gang of Four and the Cure seemed so exciting, even revolutionary to us. It’s what made us want to be in our own band.

“The funny thing was most people in our area were so isolated from this (new) music that they assumed we wrote the songs when we started doing cover versions of things like ‘Guns of Brixton’ (by the Clash). And I was too shy to even speak into the microphone to tell people they weren’t our songs.”

After a year of playing around town, 10,000 Maniacs began performing out of town, eventually settling briefly in Atlanta, where they became friends with R.E.M., who are based in nearby Athens, Ga. But the group’s breakthrough was in England where the first album (“Secrets of the I Ching”) was well received critically.

The band returned to England last spring to record “The Wishing Chair” with Joe Boyd, who also produced R.E.M.’s latest LP. The next step in the 10,000 Maniacs/R.E.M. connection occurs next month when the Maniacs open a series of Midwest concerts for R.E.M. The bands are also likely to be teamed again at the year’s end--on the Top 10 lists of numerous critics.

The crowd in front of the stage at the Bull & Gate pub in a working-class section of London danced so wildly one night last July that photographers had to retreat to the rear of the room for their safety.

At first, the dancing had the rowdy characteristics of early London punk shows. But it was soon apparent that this crowd and band were joined on a more celebratory tone. It was as if they were mates, rallying together against the hardships of an economically troubled society.

Despite its fire-and-fall-back assault, the music of the four-man, one-woman The Men They Couldn’t Hang band is purposeful and heartfelt--a refreshing alternative to the reign of numbing commercial calculation of British pop bands like Spandau Ballet. In many ways, the group has more in common with the new breed of American bands that are exploring social and political issues.

The themes of the Men’s songs range from nuclear arms and drug addiction to war and the humiliation of unemployment, but are delivered in the non-strident, sing-along spirit of a union hall social.

Some of the arrangements are too close to obvious models: the rocking “Johnny Come Home” has the energy and anger of the Clash, while “Walkin’ Talkin’ ” echoes the country-accented brightness of Rank and File. Yet there is a consistency of thematic vision and musical vitality that keeps the album from being dragged down by the obvious influences.

On stage, the Men perform with the naturalness and spirit suggested by the LP (which is available here as an import). The band’s lead singers, both 25, go simply by the nicknames Swill and Cush. The latter was a roadie for the Pogues--another new, highly regarded folk-influenced band here--before joining the Men early last year.

The Men made their concert debut at an event called the Alternative Country Festival that year, singing such songs as Johnny Cash’s 1969 novelty hit, “A Boy Named Sue,” and Pete Seeger’s vintage protest ballad “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.”

Elvis Costello caught one of the band’s shows and reportedly put in a few good words for them. The Men eventually broke into the British charts with another cover song, a folk-based anti-war lament entitled “Green Fields of France.” Except for “Fields,” all 10 songs on “Night of a Thousand Candles” are originals, written either by guitarist Paul Simmonds or singer Phil Odgers (Swill).

The album moves from the rousing “Ironmasters,” a passionate expression of union struggle, to the more restrained “Scarlet Ribbons,” another look at the casualties of war. Simmonds, who wrote the song, said it was a reflection on England’s involvement in the Falklands skirmish.

“The image of a scarlet ribbon can mean three or four different things in war and each verse describes a different context: a medal ribbon, a celebration ribbon, a hair ribbon for a wife or lover and, in the last verse, it’s a poetic image of blood streaming from the soldier’s body,” Simmonds said last summer in an interview with Melody Maker.

Are these musicians--whose music seems so concerned with the struggle between the haves and have-nots--optimistic about society? Both Simmonds and Cush appear wary.

In the same interview, Cush said, “The only difference between us (the modern working class) and David and Goliath and the Philistines is that they didn’t have nuclear wars. Things haven’t changed that much.”