If an album ripe with themes of how we’ve become a dehumanized culture — how we’ve been pounded into the emotional and intellectual equivalent of just so much silicon by the barrage of information we’re supposed to manage and process every day — sounds a bit daunting, you ain’t heard Count Zero’s new Robots Anonymous (SineAppleSap). Although bandleader Peter Moore concedes the disc is “layered and textured enough that it probably needs to be played a couple of times to get it,” there’s an appealing quality to its sound right from the dreamy mix of keyboard melodies and chugging drums that kicks things off.

Moore’s lyrics, with occasional help from his long-time collaborator and guitarist Will Ragano, crystallize a world populated by greedheads, game shows, and grovelers seen through an unblinking reptilian — and in this case robotic — eye. It’s the same kind of detached intellectual observation paired with wry humor that distinguished Moore’s popular early-’90s outfit Think Tree. Yet like that heavily electronic band, whose line-up also included Ragano, Count Zero are more than zeroes and ones. Layers of keyboards and sequenced sounds do the cosmic shimmy all over Robots Anonymous, but they’re balanced by the more organic sounds of drums, percussion, guitar, and Moore’s distinctive voice.

Scratch that line about his voice, because for brief passages it’s the most inhuman thing on the album — cut up, doctored, and rejiggered by ProTools, run through a vocoder, and tossed back down on Moore’s hard drive to rip out of stereos like a clarion from one of Isaac Asimov’s daydreams. Yet Count Zero’s music gives even the most removed diatribes — like the cynical satire of modern love and reality TV “Bachelor #3” — warmth and bounce. Much of that’s in the careful web of bright melodies Moore has made of various synths, keyboards, and guitars behind tunes like “Roach Motel” and “Go Go Go.” One of the latter’s sequenced keyboard melody signatures recalls Peter Gabriel’s “San Jacinto.” Some of those melody clusters also serve as transitions between songs — in fact, the album flows on a series of song-to-song segues.

“I had to do some weird technical crunching to get the tempos to liquidly flow together,” Moore tells me when we sit down at the Middle East’s corner bakery. “I tried to make the segues sound graceful.”

Then there’s the rhythmic bedrock, which ricochets from electro-funk to a kind of blocky, angular drive that recalls King Crimson (on “Indulgence”) to the groove on “Sham Maker” that sways like a parade of baby elephants as it rocks with Led Zep authority. And again there’s Moore’s singing, which in his wholly human performances can float up to a sweet falsetto or drop to a malignant whisper — doing its best to create a persona for each song.

That’s a tactic that’s earned Moore some barbs in the past. “With Think Tree I was doing a lot of acting on stage, getting into character for each song,” he explains. “After a while that was becoming burdensome for me and the listeners. I never really worried about being sincere. There’s always a risk you take being on a rock stage in that most people will go, ‘This isn’t sincere, is it?’ But it’s as sincere as someone playing a role in a movie.”

So live, at least, Moore has trimmed the theatrics for Count Zero, and he stresses that with Robots Anonymous he’s out to make real observations about modern life. “I have a capacity to express what I want to politically and technically, and people respond to it, which is cool. Besides, you can make a point you believe while playing the part of a character.”

It may help that Moore has another outlet for his overtly theatrical inclinations. Since 1995 he’s been one of the stars of Boston Rock Opera, turning in sterling performances in everything from that year’s Crackpot Notion to this past season’s annual serving of Jesus Christ Superstar. His mix of swagger and humility and the diction, clarity, and power of his wide-ranged voice make him a natural for the musical stage.

Moore has been putting together songs since he was four. “My family went, ‘That’s cute,’ and then I decided I was going to do this the rest of my life.” As a student he moved from Nebraska to New York to major in classical composition. But he came to Boston after his cousin Tom Moore, who worked for the Cars at their SynchroSound Studios on Newbury Street, invited him to turn his four-track demos into full productions.

In the late ’80s Peter formed Psycho Tec, which evolved into Think Tree with the addition of Ragano and others. Think Tree were one of Boston’s most popular club bands for half a decade, being a multiple winner in the Phoenix/WFNX annual Best Music Poll and earning two Boston Music Awards. Yet despite their large grassroots following here and in other major cities, Think Tree never broke out nationally.

When the band dissolved, in 1994, Moore, Ragano, and drummer Jeff Biegert flirted for a time with Bongo Fury, a spoken-word project that took its name from a Captain Beefheart/Frank Zappa collaboration. In ’96 they assembled Count Zero and released that band’s debut CD, Affluenza (on the band’s own SineAppleSap).

Even though Count Zero have two headlining shows this week — a NEMO showcase this Friday night at Lilli’s with the Countess (617-591-1661) and a benefit for the Oni Gallery downstairs at the Middle East next Thursday, April 26 (617-864-EAST) — as a rule the band have performed infrequently, only three or so times a year. Partly that’s because they want each show to be a special, club-packing affair; partly it’s because Moore — who has his own studio at home — works meticulously on his recordings; and partly it’s because Count Zero share players with Natalie Merchant, Clem Snide, Juliana Hatfield, and Tanya Donelly. When his comrades have been touring or recording elsewhere and Moore hasn’t been weaving Count Zero tracks like a Persian rug, the frontman has produced other outfits including Lockgroove and January.

It’s all work he loves. “Recording, writing, and arranging songs — you’re using the left and right sides of your brain. There aren’t too many jobs like that.”

ANOTHER OUTFIT who have a semi-hermetic performing schedule are the Bentmen, whose history in town extends back more than 15 years. They’ve earned a reputation for outrageous concerts that leave club floors ankle-to-knee-deep with debris — everything from toilet paper to shaving cream and foam chunks. And they transform stages into something akin to the interior of an iridescent cave trimmed with various stalactites and icons. Then there are the costumes, with giant papier-mâché craniums, and antics like shaving the heads of audience members.

That’s all good fun, but somehow the musical quality of the Bentmen — despite line-ups that have boasted some of the region’s hottest musicians, including guitarists Reeves Gabrels, current member Eddie Nowik, and Greg McMullin, and current V-drummer Frank Coleman — has had a problem transcending the IQ level of cartoon-metal outfit GWAR, another band with a reputation for overblown-but-simple theatrics. The Bentmen’s aspirations to social commentary have suffered from lyric failings and an overdose of metal/hard-rock clichés that have buried leader Bill Desmond’s ideas for want of hooks and musical imagination.

But, as rock-journalism cliché would have it, their new self-released Immaculate Contraption is the songwriting and musical breakthrough that Desmond has been working for. It rocks damn hard, as every Bentmen album does, with guitars and keyboards chugging and chiming in every corner; and Desmond has refined his singing, tempering his usual bellow with melody and nuance. The proof’s in the softly sung intro to the gender-confused “BoyGirl,” which turns the number poignant before Desmond crawls inside its protagonist’s befuddled head. And in plenty of other spots, including his take on Ted Kennedy’s Waterloo, uh, Chappaquiddick downfall “Lobster Bib.” The group have made weirder discs, but nothing this cohesive. Lockstep rhythms and power chords pound away in the opening “Holyman,” yet without obscuring Desmond’s points about fake religion peddlers.

In the past Desmond has wondered why a band with the Bentmen’s killer live rep hasn’t scored a big-label deal. A valid question when you consider that they’re better than GWAR and that Desmond could probably do wonders with a GWAR-sized budget. But somewhat tender lyrics about incest and the religion bashing that’s a recurring theme on Immaculate Contraption don’t help — even if they are more interesting than the usual rock or rap fare. Still, that shouldn’t stop people who aren’t spineless corporate jackasses from digging the hard, smart, direct approach the Bentmen take.

LOCAL GUITAR HERO Johnny A, a veteran of various bands and Peter Wolf’s former music director, put out his first solo album last year, a graceful set of instrumentals called Sometime Tuesday Morning. After months of significant local airplay, critical raves, growing audiences, and 5500 copies sold, Mr. A has signed a record contract with Favored Nations, the major-label-distributed imprint run by another guitar hero, Steve Vai. Sometime Tuesday Morning will get its national release in May.