Deluka Bring Dance-Punk to New York

As a courtesy to its nature-deprived New York City patrons, the music venue Brooklyn Bowl often devotes its video screens to nature films. It's a nice touch: While you sink beers, bowl or just wait for shows to begin, you can watch baby polar bear pad through the snow and cuddle with their mamas.

If you're onstage, of course, the footage can be a little distracting. That may have been the case Thursday night, as the British dance-rock quartet Deluka stopped by for a performance.

"It's good to see the wildlife program has stopped," lead singer and guitarist Ellie Innocenti said halfway through the band's eight-song set, after most of the TV sets had either been turned off or switched to ballgames. "That was kind of weird."

Deluka hails from the urban wilds of Birmingham, the post-industrial English city that birthed Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Duran Duran. That last group seems to have had at least some influence on Deluka, although Innocenti and guitarist-producer Kris Kovacs, the primary songwriters, borrow more from such '00s disco-punk acts as Franz Ferdinand and the Rapture.

Opening with 'Nevada,' Innocenti showed her handiness with a Telecaster, a gleaming white instrument she used to jam spiky chords between Kovacs alternately flowing and geometric leads. The rhythm section -- bassist Daniel Brasco and drummer Stevie Palmer -- hashed out the groove it would cling to all night, a zipper-tight interweaving of thumping eighth notes and whooshing hi-hats.

Deluka piped in synth loops on many of its songs, including the swirling Goldfrapp-like single 'Cascade,' from the band's 2009 self-titled EP. Innocenti is a markedly professional-sounding singer, but at points in the set, she conjured such howling heroes as Siouxsie Sioux and Karen O. She wore an outfit befitting of either performer, rocking jet-black bangs and off-the-shoulder kimono-like T-shirt.

After ending with the especially hooky 'Capital City,' Innocenti made like the polar bear and blended in with her surroundings.

"Cheers, we're Deluka," she said. "Let's go bowling."