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Electronica doesn’t require much as far as raw materials are concerned. A hook, a beat, some rhythm — that’s about all that’s required.

For its 2000 album Futurama, Supercar kept that aesthetic in mind, keeping its songwriting barebones but arranging the hell out of the album to make it seem larger than it was.

It’s been four years and two more albums since that first foray into electronica, and now the proverbial pendulum is swinging back.

Before Supercar took an influence from the Chemical Brothers to heart, the Hokkaido-based band played guitar rock in the vein of Ride and Jesus and Mary Chain. On Answer, the band’s seventh studio album and third to use electronica, Supercar has gone back to writing rock music.

“Last Scene” is probably most indicative of this creative shift. The live drums, the piano and the ethereal guitars are decidedly scaled back compared to such earlier works as “Fairway” or “Aoharu Youth”.

It’s also one of the band’s most appealing singles.

The eight-minute “Siren” stretches for as long as it does, not because its driven by a house beat, but because the band actually jams a bit.

The overtly electronica influence isn’t totally gone. “BGM” is robotic but catchy. “Recreation” is driven by guitars, but the feel is totally minimalistic.

But where the band could have used drum machines and walls of synthesizers to achieve the strange effects of “Justice Black” and “Wonder Word”, it instead relies on live playing.

“Sunshine Fairyland” could have been done entirely on synthesizers, but the live bass, guitar and drums are more than serviceable.

Answer also contains actual songs as well — not just a series of motifs set on repeat. “Dischord” and “Harmony” may fall back on repetition, but “Freehand” and “The World Is Naked” contain some actual choruses and bridges.

This album is perhaps Supercar’s most successful balance between rock complexity and electronica simplicity. It’s not as epic as Futurama, but it’s certainly a lot more substantial than 2002’s Highvision.

If anything, it’s the perfect answer to the question of whether rock and electronica really can get along.

Supercar didn’t mess around when it dove head-long into electronica.

The band’s first forray into club beats resulted in the dramatic Futurama, an album that approximated the feel of an all-night mix but ended up being a rock epic instead.

Like most great albums, it set up some pretty unreasonable expectations for a sequel.

Highvision, Supercar’s follow-up to Futurama, continues the band’s seamless marriage of synthetic beats and huge rock guitars, but this time around, the quartet has scaled back.

The album feels like an album, not a CD-length mix, nor a concept piece. Two-second gaps, the mark of a work not beholden to an Overriding Concept, are in great supply on Highvision.

This less ambitious approach seems almost anti-climactic at first, but after repeated listenings, it turns out to be a smarter move. By freeing the songs from interludes and segues, Supercar gives each track its own identity.

“Storywriter” is a straight-on rock song with live drums, buzzing guitars and Nakamura Koji’s soothing croon. It would have been difficult tying that track in with “Warning Bell”, a non-descript techno song that precedes it, or “Aoharu Youth”, a mellow, ethereal track that follows.

On the whole, Highvision feels less cluttered than Futurama. Unlike the heavy-handed arrangements of “Fairway” or “White Surf Style 5”, tracks such as “Otogi Nation” and “Starline” breathe in the spaces not occupied by lots of strange effects.

At the same time, there’s something of a live component seemingly missing from Highvision. Drummer Tozawa Kodai feels buried, if not altogether lost, on “Warning Bell” and “Yumegiwa Last Boy”. Even with the drum machines, his presence felt more prominent on Futurama.

Supercar does leave some room for experiments. A chipmunk-voiced Furukawa Miki punctuates the drum ‘n’ bass ambience of “I” (no relation to the recently-released Buffalo Daughter album of the same title.)

“Strobolights” gets remixed for the album, those analog arpeggios that assaulted listeners on the single version are reigned in till midway through the song.

Although it’s hard not to cast Highvision in terms of Futurama, ultimately Highvision stands on its own. Its seemingly humble ambitions are no less tuneful or appealing than its predecessor.

Even the album’s relatively short length — 48 minutes — isn’t too much of a bother. Probably most important is the fact Supercar has managed to prove yet again that guitars and club beats go well together.

There are a few things preventing Supercar’s Futurama from being one of the best British pop albums to be released in 2000.

Supercar isn’t from Britain, and Futurama isn’t sung in English.

Of course, the same could almost be said if Supercar were based in the States and did sing in English — it doesn’t prevent Futurama from sounding like it came from a Manchester rave or a London garage.

Supercar is really from Japan, as the band’s lyrics attest, but the group’s gorgeous sonic tapestry of buzzing, industrial guitars, techno beats, and square-wave synthesizer effects is far more international.

The Sony press machine compares the band to Lush, the Cranes and Psychocandy-era Jesus and Mary Chain.

Well, it’s a better description than I can come up with, even if it’s still slightly inaccurate. Think of a more electronica-friendly, less-grungey Garbage.

Supercar achieves the kind of balance between rock and dance that major labels were so desparately trying to find back in 1997, when alternative rock really started to leave a bad, putrefying smell.

If anything, Supercar does labelmates Boom Boom Satellites one better by writing actualy tunes.

“White Surf Style 5” is like a Beach Boys song on poppers. “Baby Once More” indulges in the lyrical minimalism of the best club music while employing twangy guitars. “Flava” sports effects that call to mind space-age lounge music, while “A.O.S.A.” sounds like it could have come from Everything But the Girl’s distant garage rock cousins.

“New Young City” features some really nice string arrangements that Jon Crosby probably cosmically channeled while recording VAST’s Music for People, while “Fairway” buzzes to an incessant dance beat.

Bassist/vocalist Nakamura Koji sings like he has a British accent — although not as heavily fake as Love Psychedelico’s Kumi — and his cool croon suits Supercar’s metallic but warm sound.

Aside from being a widly diverse and original work, Futurama is also incredibly cohesive, even as it pulls in 20 directions at one time. It’s an ambitious work that’s skillfully written as it is wonderfully performed.