A pack of crazy-cool Dogs

Music: In Concert, CDs

Anyone who names their band Dogs Die in Hot Cars obviously has a screw loose. Fortunately, the members of this Scottish quintet are crazy in all the right ways.

On the band's new album, Please Describe Yourself, singer/guitarist Craig Macintosh yelps about famous actresses, primary-school history lessons and small-town life in a voice that resembles David Byrne on a European holiday, while the group pumps out sublimely geeky new-wave nostalgia.

The bouncy ska-pop single "I Love You 'Cause I Have To" could have been a hit for Madness in 1983, "Celebrity Sanctum" is vintage Big Country, and everything else (save the overblown power ballad "Somewhat Off the Way") sounds like a Squeeze or XTC outtake. Please Describe Yourself is silly, awkward and completely uncool. That's why it's so much fun.

Dogs Die in Hot Cars

Please Describe Yourself (V2) ***1/2