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Spanish quartet Manta Ray will brings its indie rock to the Cooperage on Friday night.

Correction appended

For Frank Rudow,German-born multi-instrumentalist of the Spanish rock band Manta Ray, April 14 was the longest day in his life. After touching down from a 34-hour flight from Europe, Rudow found himself surrounded by the greenery and suburbs of Oregon, excited to be in the Western Hemisphere for the first time to begin the band’s first U.S. tour. The last point of the tour’s West Coast leg lands at UCLA’s Cooperage on Friday night.

“I woke up at six this morning and had a walk through the neighborhood,” said Rudow, vacillating between English and Spanish in a thick German accent. “Everything is so new for me. Everything is looking like ‘The Simpsons’ for me. The neighborhood here is like this typical (American) town. It was like, ‘Look, the house of Flanders.’”

It seems appropriate that Manta Ray – a band that for 12 years has been writing lyrics in English and whose members love American music, from artists like Johnny Cash, Tortoise, Van Morrison and Sonic Youth – is finally setting foot on American soil. But despite its popularity in Europe, the band members have no idea how their musical style will be received in the United States.

Manta Ray’s music expresses sincere emotions like rage and frustration from anger over painful or complicated current events, like the recent terrorist bombing in Madrid, Spain. The band’s latest release, “Estratexa,” reacts emotionally to such issues like the war in Iraq and the massive oil spill that occurred in 2002 near the band’s home base, Asturias, Spain.

Asturias is a region in Northern Spain, which like Oregon, is perennially rainy and green. But unlike Oregon, Asturias has its own 2,000-year-old language, Asturiano, which has been fighting to make a comeback in art and literature since the death of the repressive Spanish dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. Manta Ray does its part to save Asturiano by titling a handful of songs in this language, which bears some resemblance to Castilian Spanish. Even their album title, “Estratexa,” is the the Asturian word for strategy.

“In this record we thought about situations not only in Asturias, but in the whole world as well. There are a lot of wars, and for us that’s really disgusting,” said Rudow. “It produced a situation of rage (which was expressed) in our way of using instruments.”

Manta Ray is a politically minded quartet, but its political stances are not explicitly stated in its music. On the contrary, the band’s musical landscapes are meant to give liberty to listeners to make their own interpretations. For example, “Estratexa” includes an instrumental track titled “Rosa Parks,” which, aside from the title, includes no words about the famous American civil rights advocate; it is simply inspired by and dedicated to her.

Although the majority of the compositions are wordless, the occasional lyrics are in Spanish or English. The use of two languages is done primarily as an artistic technique.

“The words are like another instrument that we put over the music, but it’s not the most important (thing) in our music,” said Rudow.

In both the songs and performance, what is expressed verbally comes second to what is communicated musically. Rudow noted that he enjoys “funny guy” bands that joke with the audience, but this style never worked for Manta Ray, whose emotional and complex compositions require the utmost sobriety of attitude. The band sometimes looks frozen onstage, lost in intense concentration.

Rudow said that Spanish audiences accept what the band is doing, even if they don’t understand the references. He added that he is looking forward to beginning the tour in the United States, meeting American people, and seeing how audiences over here respond.

“I hope that the audience will be open-minded,” said Rudow.

Correction: April 26, 2004, Monday

The photograph accompanying “Spanish band embarks on new territory” was not of rock band Manta Ray.