Ever turn on the radio and hear a new song by an unknown band that just grabs you by the lapels and won't let go? A song that sounds vaguely familiar, yet is fresh and exciting in all the right ways? A song that immediately strikes a universal chord?

Radiohead's "Creep" has been that song for me recently, and, evidently, for a lot of other folks as well. "Creep" has been the No. 1 single on alternative radio for five weeks running and has often been featured on MTV's "120 Minutes" altnernative rock show on Sunday night. Radiohead's debut album, "Pablo Honey," co-produced by Bostonians Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade, is at a very respectable No. 85 on Billboard's chart. The London-based quintet, fronted by fragile-looking, dyed-blond singer Thom Yorke, made their US debut at a packed Venus de Milo Tuesday night, the anticipation echoing that of Suedemania a few weeks back.

"Creep" has a couple of unerring melodic hooks, a soft-to-slashing transition (including a neat guitar stutter-spurt that anticipates the blitz) and a charming, Bowie-esque little-boy-lost overtone in Yorke's falsetto vocal. What gives "Creep" its special appeal is the light in which Yorke casts himself: The outsider who doesn't - can't ever - belong to the in crowd. "I wish I was special, you're so special, so very special," he sings to his intended, "But I'm a creep." (In concert and in the unedited version, Yorke supplants "very" with a common profanity.) The guitars come crashing down and zooming on at the word "creep." The song has a sexy, swaying motion - it oozes want and desire. Which, of course, will be denied. So anger sets in.

Self-denigration is not a common theme in the chest-thumping world of rock, but it has its history: The Who's "Substitute," the Buzzcocks "What Do I Get?," Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," the bulk of the Smiths/Morrissey catalog, a lot the American Music Club's stuff, some of Suede's best. "Creep" ranks right up there. The song, played two-thirds of the way through Radiohead's hour-long set, was certainly the high point. The good news for potential Radiohead fans is that the band doesn't seem to be a one-hit wonder: The well runs deeper.

Their primary gambit is the ever-in-fashion hybrid of pop/noise: a simple fetching melody driven beyond the limits by a distorted guitar. Radiohead's record company bio lists its players this way: Yorke - inaudible guitar; Jonny Greenwood - abusive guitar; Ed O'Brien - polite guitar. Tuesday's set boasted some enrapturing Velvet Underground-like drones and a number of wondrous, corkscrew guitar eruptions in songs like "Ripcord," "Blow Up," "Vegetable" and "Pop Is Dead." The guitars etched out a churning, hypnotic mantra-like quality and Radiohead pulled off that old post-punk trick of turning angst and frustration into rock 'n' roll bliss.