Thurs. Oct. 27 

  Massive grooves and frenetic polyrhythms are not all there is to like about Friendly Fires. But it’s where the English trio starts and ends its day. And if you’re not shaking your hips and smiling, the magic’s not working.
    It was working in Boston, the third gig of a 12-date US tour back in May at the Paradise, the venue they return to Thursday Oct. 27.
   “Born too late to feel the golden age,” sang Ed Macfarlane, near the end of the band’s hour-long set in “Live Those Days Tonight.”  “Missed the rush, the lights of better days … I can't touch your precious past but … I'll live those days tonight.”
     The “precious” past?
      Friendly Fires looks back to Prince and Talking Heads (even slightly to the gauzy guitar glaze of My Bloody Valentine), but they also do pretty much what Macfarlane suggested: Set the pulse for today’s indie rock-funk party. They don’t have the widest range, but they work what they know intensely.
     Friendly Fires began this journey in 2006 and they scored big in their native land in 2009. Their eponymous debut disc went double gold and the band was nominated for a Mercury Prize. They’re currently touring behind their second album, the just-released “Pala.”
  Why Pala?
   Pala was the utopian island created by novelist Aldous Huxley in his 1962 novel, “Island.” It’s the mirror opposite the dystopian landscape of “Brave New World,” a place of uninhibited joy, a carnival of sorts.
   Which is where Friendly Fires dwell. The core group - Macfarlane, guitarist Edd Gibson and drummer Jack Savidge - is being augmented on tour by bassist/percussionist Jack Hanson and two New York-based horn players (trumpeter John Coulson and saxophonist Joe May). The sidemen were far from incidental. They added percussive punch and melodic layers to Friendly Fires’ sound. (Savidge also triggered samples from his kit.)
   The downside was that Macfarlane - who ran up to the balcony as far as his cord could reach during “True Love” and jumped onto the dance floor during the encore of “Hawaiian Air” – did not benefit from the vocal mix. You caught the tag lines in the hooky choruses, but not so much the lyrics in the verses. (The verses in “Hawaiian Air” are sharp – about a long flight to Hawaii and anxiety incurred.)
    “Jump in the Pool,” played near the end, was a whirlwind of propulsive funk and wide-screen rock splashes. Friendly Fires loves false endings, songs that halt, resume and accelerate. There were a lot of swoops and swerves in their (too-short) set. Left you a tad hungry and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
(This is a version of an expanded review that ran in the Boston Herald earlier this year.)
Tickets: $16.50. With Theophilus London. Starts at 9.

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