POP MUSIC REVIEW : Big Pig Appears to Be From Hog Heaven

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Big Pig may be the dumbest name for a mainstream pop-rock group since 10,000 Maniacs, yet this novel Australian band is something special.

You’ve always got to worry whether there’s any true musical substance behind a group that comes across as studied and that puts so much emphasis on unorthodox musical form as Big Pig, which made its local debut Sunday night at the Roxy.

But the band shattered those doubts in a frequently dazzling hour-long performance that demonstrated instincts for visual presentation and sensual rhythm as sharp as the early Talking Heads and Eurythmics.

Like Talking Heads, the Big Pig brain trust understands the value of understatement and tension. The seven band members wore black apron-like outfits on stage that made them look like they were on a break from their duties in the kitchen.

This distinctive, but anonymous appearance was mirrored by equally subtle choreography that contrasted the efficient, workmanlike manner of the five musicians (three percussionists, a keyboardist and a harmonica player) and the more passionate, outgoing tendencies of the group’s two primary singers.

Wisely, Big Pig started things off Sunday by emphasizing the group’s most down-to-earth quality--the marvelously soulful singing of a young woman who goes only by the first name, Sherine.

While the musicians (there are no guitarists or bassists in the band) added only the faintest embroidery, Sherine sang a dark, involving number--”Devil’s Song”--that exhibited a texture and range far beyond the Annie Lennox comparisons raised by her vocal on the group’s first single, the dance-club favorite “I Can’t Breakaway.”

After showcasing this solid vocal base, Big Pig then backed Sherine’s vocals (who alternated on lead with Nick Disbray) with marvelously intricate and interlocking rhythms that provided a bright, seductive underpinning to the songs.

The rhythms were frequently so dominant that they made the songs seem simply vehicles for the band’s instrumental game plan, but the best songs are thoughtful and appealing statements about a wide range of human traits--innocence and faith, corruption and greed.

Returning for the encore, the band again spotlighted Sherine, whose fiery, torch-like rendition of “Ghost Song,” a song not on the group’s A & M album, was the emotional high point of the evening. Even with a name like Big Pig, this is a band with a future.