When Joe Melchiorre shimmies and sways like a drunked-up tiger on Vaselined linoleum, I think: The Cars without Roy Thomas Baker.

Shudder to Think with hair.

A male Helium.

The soundtrack to Times Square, all of it, at once.

A coked-up cast party for the original first-night production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Each of these is a righteous, all-awesome comparison in my book.

"Being compared to a male really gets me," says Melchiorre, corresponding from somewhere in the wilds of Canada. The vocalist/guitarist/composer fronts his glam-glomming band with breathy hysterical twists on its debut CD, Hard-Work for Hang-Ups. "I strive to be a perfectionist when it comes to being a jerk. It's an art long lost since W.C. Fields."

Was Melchiorre this wry when he led Perils of Pauline through the dark, mod, Brit-pop rigors of the late '90s? Together for six years before their year 2000 split, Melchiorre, Pauline and its best songs (like "Rosabella") were husky, dusky and romantic. Haunting yet hopeful.

What happened to that Joe?

He, along with the other Perils, got tired of smelling each others' feet and breath, courting label interest and losing label interest, and bullying their own writing so to keep interest going. They just got tired of pushing the old donkey around.

Plus.

"My neurosis shifted over the years. That's what happened," laughs Melchiorre of going from the dark and romantic to the bloated, jaded and contrived.

"Don't forget trite. At least that's what I'm going for now."

Melchiorre held over some of the most essential aspects of PoP — "desperation, anxiety, white socks and tight pants" — and slowly built and discarded several versions of Persona. He found the final, current members, Dave Latimer (drums) and Ron Bohn (bass), through answered prayers and Internet ads. "Phone-sex ones to be precise," says Melchiorre.

Way grander than the Perils of his past, the high-strung, Ronson-razoring guitar opera that is Hard-Work has this wiggly, wavey synthesizer thing going below the surface — one that wriggles in tandem with Melchiorre's glass-squeaking vocals. Distant but animated, sleek but never shying from animal grace, the CD's diamond-cutting production (executed by Brad Wood, Jason Sexton and Melchiorre) is precise yet still dirrrty.

But what about the love? What about the black celebratory romanticism that made Pauline purr? What the hell kind of love songs are these: the boredom of a stagnant situation on "Nothing Changes," the anxious realizations that some things might not be worth the effort put into them writ into "Sick of Dancing"?

"These are the kind of love songs that one would put on to set the mood of a marriage proposal. No. These are the sort of love songs to be used as background music to those amazing car commercials we've been seeing as of late. Really? The most romantic thing I can think about is a good burger. One with bacon and cheddar cheese on an English muffin, cooked medium rare. If I focus on the lyrics and someone actually pays attention to them, it will be painfully obvious where I had stolen them from," says Melchiorre in what seems like one long breath.

Funny, then, that Hard-Work's final moment finds its true tenderoni in "Bullet," writing about someone Melchiorre hardly knew: Sara Weaver, the activist and singer for the band Swisher who died from the complications of leukemia in 2002. "It shook me. She was the first person I knew around my age who died way too early and in such a horrible way."

Her story gives the acoustic-strung song, littered with curls of vicious feedback and conversational chatter, a look-see into fear and wonder like no empty, caustic witticism could.

Persona CD release party, Mon., Sept. 5, 9 p.m., free, with Sketch, Silk City, Fifth and Spring Garden sts., 215-592-8838, www.silkcitylounge.com.

If histrionica is a genre, Joseph Melchiorre created it. From wiggy warbling vocals to giddy, oscillating synth nuances, Hard-Work is glam-pop at its most neurotically self-conscious. Cleanly angled guitars and clipped quick drums, highlighted by a scrubbed, steely production, cascade into shiny, unhappy pop-scapades. While Melchiorre's lyrics have a spiteful, hateful edge ("Hero in Flames") richly etched in a character-study fashion ("Bad George" and his tale of being a Grand Funk Railroad fan), he stops for an emotional finale ("Bullet") whose tenderness winds up a doubly theatrical outing. Brava.