SOUND CHECK.

ARCTIC MONKEYS: ``Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I Am Not'' (Domino) - Three stars

In a week when the incomprehensible occurred - Barry Manilow topping the albums chart - along comes a record crackling with so much teen spirit and humor it'll make you dress sharper and drive faster.

Arctic Monkeys, a scrappy quartet out of the U.K.'s gritty Sheffield, has packed its debut with well-crafted, concise tunes, providing immediate liftoff. Splendid radio-ready songs like ``I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor,'' ``The View From the Afternoon'' and ``Fake Tales of San Francisco'' smartly comment on various aspects of big-city life and, most frightening, asking strange girls to dance. Group leader Alex Turner has a way with words and a charming accent besides.

Hopefully, ``Whatever People Say I Am,'' which will be revered overnight by everyone who got a bang out of Franz Ferdinand's debut and by those who deeply miss the Smiths, the Specials and the Longpigs, won't be a one-off thing. In stores Tuesday.

- Fred Shuster

PAUL MOTIAN BAND: ``Garden of Eden'' (ECM) - Three and one half stars

Drummer Motian, who will celebrate his 75th birthday next month, continues to expand ideas he set forth in the 1990s with his Electric Bebop Band. The band's name change reflects a greater emphasis on original compositions, but there are some classics here, too - the album leads off with two by Mingus, closing with Monk and Parker. Of 14 selections, all but two clock in at under five minutes, forcing the band - which includes three guitarists, two saxophonists and Jerome Harris on bass - to play with purpose and precision, coloring carefully crafted, deceptively breezy songs with transcendent urgency.

- Glenn Whipp

MATT SCHOFIELD: ``Siftin' Thru Ashes'' (Nugene) - Three stars

We've been swamped with pretty-boy blues pretenders for years. But the U.K.'s Schofield is head and shoulders above that herd. Now in his late 20s, Schofield cut his teeth playing in house bands at European music festivals, backing a variety of acts. In his first studio album, the singer-guitarist, often using a battered, sweet-sounding Strat, provides high-wire thrills and Otis Rush-inspired trills in eight originals, together with welcome readings of such classics as the Boxtops' ``The Letter'' and the Meters' ``People Say.'' Blues soloing is a language of phrasing, and Schofield speaks it unusually well.

- F.S.

TONY GILKYSON: ``Goodbye Guitar'' (Rolling Sea) Three and one half stars

Despite the title of his mostly self-penned, folksy rock collection, the six-string god of such legendary punk outfits as X and Lone Justice provides ample fretwork on this haunting, very personal release. Autobiographically inspired tunes address both the romance (``Gypsies in My Backyard'') and life-swallowing grind (the title song) of the working musician's life with poetic lyricism reminiscent of Grateful Dead songwriter Robert Hunter's. Long a sideman and producer for such noteworthy acts as Chuck E. Weiss, Eleni Mandell and his singer-songwriter sister Eliza, Gilkyson really comes into his own voice on this charming, affecting disc. In stores Tuesday.

- Bob Strauss

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