This Channel plays hard, driving rock

The Panic Channel
With Bullets and Octane
At: the Paradise, Friday night

Watching the Panic Channel at the Paradise on Friday night was like taking the first spin in a brand new car. The machine zoomed along like a dream, but better -- like an advertisement for a dream. Everything was shiny and new, the kinks had been worked out, but there wasn't the comfort of familiarity.

Two years in the making, Panic Channel is fronted by the plush , powerful vocals of former Skycycle frontman and MTV VJ Steve Isaacs, who also plays guitar, and includes former Jane's Addiction members Stephen Perkins on drums, Chris Chaney on bass, and guitarist Dave Navarro . Navarro's many media credits include CBS' s ``Rock Star" reality shows. The sound was familiar: hard , driving rock with grunge nods. But with the Panic Channel's debut, ``(ONe)," mostly under wraps until September, the audience, which was scant, only half filling the Paradise, was in the awkward position of just getting to know the songs.

Sporting a cowboy hat and his trademark bare , hyper-toned, tattooed , and pierced torso, Navarro impressed with speedy fret workouts and subtler passages of plangent lingering notes and revealed a delicate hand on the lovely grunge lament ``We Cry." Perkins was less percussive than in Addiction days, instead forming a heavy , solid backline with Chaney.

With his curly mop of black hair, black-rimmed eyes, and pale skin, Isaacs was reminiscent of Brandon Lee in the movie ``The Crow." He performed with a similar hard dignity and dramatic intensity too. The creamy driving rock confection ``Tea House of the Spirits" was an early highlight, and the finale, a languid spacey cover of Led Zeppelin's ``Dazed and Confused," was a crowd pleaser.

Moments earlier, as the band huddled for an acoustic number, Isaacs chatted and introduced his bandmates with much praise. A smiling, skirt-wearing Perkins interjected, applauding Isaacs equally, saying, ``He's taking us into the future."

Despite working hard to define its presence, opening quartet Bullets and Octane's sleazy, nihilistic rawk harkened to another time, another place. Say, West Hollywood circa 1988.