** Spacehog

THE CHINESE ALBUM

(Sire)

Spacehog are four Young Dudes from Leeds to who moved to NYC a few years ago and scored a record deal with their shameless imitation of classic glam-era David Bowie, which is sort of funny when you consider Bowie's own history of pilfering from Marc Bolan, Nick Drake, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop. But pilfering is too polite a term for Spacehog's brand of larceny; unabashed sounds too cute; and even shameless isn't quite strong enough to describe the degree to which Spacehog aped the wham-bam intergalactic glam of ye olde Thin White Duke on Resident Alien, their 1995 Sire debut.

The Chinese Album, which comes out this Tuesday, follows the same basic game plan, only Spacehog show a bit more instrumental sophistication this time around. The mix of skeletal piano, electronic drums, and found sounds on "One of These Days" brings to mind Eno-era Bowie -- assuming you can get past singer/bassist Royston Langdon's moronic musings on mortality and his pitch-perfect warbling Bowie impersonations. And his Royston's guitarist brother Antony embellishes the "Jean Genie" stomp of "Goodbye Violet Race" with some top-notch Mick Ronson-style fancy fretwork. Like America doing Neil Young, Badfinger doing the Beatles, or, more accurately, the Cult doing AC/DC, Spacehog's Spiders from Mars shtick works best for the length of a hook-laden rocker like "Mungo City" ("Suffragette City"?) -- which is a damn fine single -- and grows immensely tiresome over the course of an hour-long album. But if Ziggy Stardust ever decides to make a comeback, he'll know where to find a decent backing band.

-- Matt Ashare