True story? "It sounds very likely," Jones notes dryly from his "cottage in the middle of nowhere" near Edinburgh, Scotland.

The musical relationship between Jones, Anderson and keyboardist John Maclean extends back more than a decade, when the three were members of trippy electronic-rock outfit the Beta Band. However, soon after completing work on the Betas' 1997 debut EP, "Champion Versions," Anderson fell ill and departed the band.

In 2005, after recording only sporadically and receiving nearly 150 electro-shock treatments, Anderson reunited with Jones and Maclean, who were with the Beta Band until it disbanded in late 2004.

"We always had been friends, and John and I knew (Anderson) from art college back in the early `90s," Jones says. "I've always had a massive respect for Gordon's songwriting. It was frustrating not to be working with him (in the Beta Band). We were happy to hear that he was getting well again ...

"John and Gordon are very close; they grew up near each other. So they tried to do some songs together." Those songs became The Aliens' EP "Alienoid Starmonica."

In March, The Aliens' debut CD, "Astronomy for Dogs," was released in England to wide acclaim. Critics applauded the record's majestic melodies and expansive, expertly played songs that skip back and forth over four decades without tripping over their influences, or becoming mired in nostalgia.

The band also created a musical catch phrase for itself:"We are the Aliens," first sung harmoniously, like a snippet from "Abbey Road," at the end of rowdy garage-rocker "Setting Sun" and then more moodily, like a "Their Satanic Majesties Request" fragment, at the conclusion of "I Am the Unknown."

"When we play festivals the crowds start chorusing that," says Jones. "The way it happened was, Gordon says, `I have a song that goes, "We are the aliens, we come from space."' John picked up on that, boiled it down and came up with that little skit."

One of "Astronomy's" most breathtaking moments comes on the inward-looking "Only Waiting." For the last two minutes of the tune, Anderson tosses a Lennonesque word salad at hyperspeed while galloping drums and strings egg him on. "Gordon wrote that years ago," says Jones. "He would turn on the tape recorder and start speaking, sometimes just making noises. Then he would go back and decipher them."

And how did he manage to sing it all? "He multi-tracked the vocal about 40 times. Mania is one word to describe (his method)."

Other notable tracks include the lilting "Tomorrow," which, given its echoes of The Searchers, The Beatles and the Flamin' Groovies, Jones rightly calls "a study of the 1960s," and the Kinks-flavored "Glover," about a stagnant marriage in a sterile suburbia.

"Gordon was listening to (the Beach Boys') `Smiley Smile' and `Good Vibrations,' I'm guessing," says Jones of "Glover," which is full of squiggly electronic twists and turns.

"His original demo was about 25 minutes long. We said, `Gordon, what are we gonna do with that?' He said, `We'll put one part of it on one side of an album and the other half on the other side.'"

Having won over Britain, Jones, Anderson and Maclean have North America in their sights. "Astronomy" was released in the U.S. in June, and on Sept. 17, The Aliens began a 14-gig tour of North America.

Asked if he is surprised at the overwhelmingly positive reaction to "Astronomy," Jones answers, "It's difficult to not like some part of it. It's quite innocently done. Gordon is a very open guy. He's actually feeling all these things. There's no pretense. It carries over to the words in his songs.

"Is it a bit too slick? Maybe the next album will be rougher around the edges. But some of these songs Gordon's been sitting with for 10 years ... It's all good fun. Anyone who's not really twisted will like this record."