All the critics love you in New York — or so Prince once sang during his halcyon “1999” phase, back when, for him, it was still a fact. Bands flinch at “flavor of the month” status, but the truth is that critics constantly need someone to lavish with affection, and in the era of MP3 Web logs, not only is the maxim “everyone’s a critic” truer than ever — it’s startling how quickly buzz can be generated.

Two of the year’s buzziest indie rock acts share a double bill tonight at Pier 17, closing the summer’s Seaport Music Festival. Battles is a New York-based quartet whose mostly instrumental pieces smartly fuse Swiss watch precision with complicated, shifting meters and plenty of springy, dynamic wallop. Deerhunter hails from Atlanta, and plays swirling, atmospheric songs in which melody can wash away into noisy, impressionistic fugues.

How did they come to loom so compellingly on the critical radar? Here’s how:

1. Get a rave review from Pitchfork. The most read MP3 review site, www.pitchforkmedia.com, is a major booster of both acts. Battles’ most recent album, “Mirrored” (Warp), got a 9.1 rating out of 10. Deerhunter’s “Cryptograms” (Kranky) scored an 8.9.

2. Have a killer pedigree. Battles is nearly an indie rock supergroup. Drummer John Stanier was formerly with Helmet, the guitar-driven 1990s juggernaut. Guitarist Ian Williams hails from Pittsburgh math rockers Don Caballero. Guitarist and keyboardist Tyondai Braxton also enjoys a solo following, and is the son of the avant-garde composer and MacArthur Grant genius Anthony Braxton.

3 Have an unforgettbable front man. Deerhunter vocalist Bradford Cox often performs in a wedding gown and may wind up smeared in fake blood or other substances before the end of the show. He’s also known for lively impromptu dialogues with the audience, and for his skin-andbones physique. He has Marfan’s Syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by disproportionately long limbs, possibly shared with Abraham Lincoln and Osama bin Laden.

4 Be original, but sprinkle influences liberally. Battles’ very human yet metronomic sound will have astute fans running back to their old Kraftwerk records or thinking of the 1960s tape-loop experiments of Steve Reich. Deerhunter can evoke Echo and the Bunnymen, though half of “Cryptograms” is improvised ambient rock that nods to Brian Eno and the Fall. As a lyricist, Mr. Cox has acknowledged the influence of Dennis Cooper’s dark, homoerotic novels.

5 Think visuals. Mr. Stanier bright yellow Tama drum kit sports a single cymbal raised about 10 feet above the stage. It’s a simple thing, really — symbolic of the effortful performances Battles gives, during which the band’s members must constantly attend to keys, strings, pedals, and knobs. The primary yellow also keys into the group’s design elements, a Kandinsky-esque theme that illuminates the group’s CD packaging, cleverly conceived by guitarist Dave Konopka.

6 Come from out of left field. Atlanta, hometown to Deerhunter, is better known for its multi-million dollar R&B and rap industry than its rock scene. But the city has long nurtured an underbelly of eccentric artist-types. Chan Marshall of Cat Power used to sling pizzas there, and jam-rock guru Col. Bruce Hampton stands as a magnet of chicken-fried weirdness. Deerhunter, along with the progressive metal band Mastodon and garage-rockers the Black Lips, is putting hip-hop’s “ATL” back on the rock ‘n’ roll map.

7 Incite the blogosphere. Mr. Cox loves outrage, so there’s always a surprise waiting on the Deerhunter blog: http://deerhuntertheband.blogspot.com. A late July entry chronicles a robbery at gunpoint after the band’s homecoming show. Despite its ongoing success, Deerhunter saves a spot for its favorite hate mail on its MySpace page. “Tonight I saw your group in Nashville,” begins one such communication. “Please, STOP MAKING (what might be conceived as) MUSIC! You have no melodies, there was no songwriting skills involved, lack of chord structures, AND your songs are pathetically too long. It’s an embarrassment you opened for the yeahyeahyeahs.”

8 Disavow the hype. Writing this week ont he Deerhunter blog, Mr. Cox pins much of his onstage and offstage antics on social retardation — not attention whoredom. “I don’t want to shock anyone,” he said. “I don’t want to be a Pitchfork darling. I don’t want to be some famous indie hipster. I just like having fun …”

9 Be enigmatic. What are those lyrics that Mr Braxton sings, in an electronically distorted pitch that makes him sound like a cartoon chipmunk, on Battles’ signal composition “Atlas”? Just a little something he made up, and that’s all he’s saying about it. Amid an otherwise wordless performance, however, the vocals give an audience a way to connect besides bouncing on the soles of its feet. Whatever those nonsense-sounding syllables happen to be, everyone sings along.

Battles and Deerhunter perform tonight at Pier 17, South Street Seaport, at South and Fulton streets. Admission is free.