**1/2 The Blue Hawaiians

SAVAGE NIGHT

(Interscope)

Vocalist Mark Fontana and cohort could be poster boys for the post-"Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing" khaki exotica movement -- they merge lounge, spy, and surf into a collection that, like most Gap apparel, is wrinkle-free and delightfully insidious. Savage Night offers a mishmash of pop-culture reference points (secret-agent theme music, noir lyrics) that keeps the sex in surf but ditches the sun. A bluesy, one-two combo of Hawaiian steel guitar and Hammond B3 organ threads through a slew of sly covers, allowing Tom Waits's "Jockey Full of Bourbon" and Henry Mancini's "Experiment in Terror" room to loll about menacingly.

A few of the originals don't rock the hammock quite so smoothly. The band's lyrics are generous to a fault with dark desert drives and dangerous dames, proving only that they know lots of hard-boiled clichés. "Lonely Star" and other pompadoured entries emulate the Elvis/Orbison/Isaak trinity with Fontana left grasping for a jukebox classic well out of his reach. But the Hawaiians deliver on most promises, making sportive tiki elixirs like "Swing" do exactly that and atoning for lapses in charm in the meantime.

-- Joseph Manera