Scott Lucas had just finished an especially acerbic "Manifest Destiny" when a lone voice bellowed from the back of the Sunday night Crocodile conclave. "You guys rock!" came the thick throated would-be compliment.

"Yeah, well, bang your head to this one," Lucas quietly but sarcastically replied and then swatted out a furious "Freeze Dried (F)lies. Lucas and drummer Joe Daniels, two lads from the wastelands of Zion, Illinois, seem to have a genuine love/hate relationship with the music they play and those who respond to it. They write and sing about home like the prison it is, the people that populate their songs unable to get over the wall or even out of their own way. Everyone is cursed to repeat the failings of their forefathers and Lucas and Daniels are cursed to chronicle them.

But the very things they seem to dislike -- hard, mind-numbing rock and the herd that perpetuates it -- are among the very elements that make what they do so appealing. For two guys, they make a mighty noise but they do it with precision and well-considered, surprising finesse. By playing both guitar and bass through the same instrument, Lucas holds the two together as closely as Siamese twins joined at the groin. And Daniels, low seated behind his spare kit, knows exactly where Lucas' twins are heading, and rides right below the free fall always anticipating the next twist in the wind.

Lucas, in a white T-shirt and hang down hair, could almost be the re-animated road spill of a collision between Cobain's Valiant and Mellencamp's John Deere. He has that young middle America road-to-nowhere shrug 'n' stance, a stoner's sensibilities with a headbangers heart and plenty of Seattle-style sogged out angst. Life hurts not just because it's painful but because it's boring.

The only things that alleviate the everyday sameness are violence and betrayal and regardless of how distasteful and moronic Lucas finds it, he can't avoid it anymore than he could avoid the AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne he was weaned on.

The band's closing "High Fivin' MF" probably summed up Local H's weird dichotomy better than any other song. A diatribe against moshers and bullies, it's nonetheless brutally custom made for moshing and bullying, although the Seattle audience was a little too polite for either.

"You've got no taste in music and you really love our band," Lucas wailed, acknowledging the absurdities of his art and its acceptance. The audience could only heartily agreed.