** KENTUCKY HEADHUNTERS : “Electric Barnyard” : <i> Mercury</i>

A little country, a little blues, more than a bit rock ‘n’ roll, these Appalachian rowdies sound a lot like ZZ Top Lite: half the chops and only a third as witty. The HeadHunters’ 1989 debut album nabbed several major country awards, and the quintet has caught on by thumbing its nose at all those wimpy country neo-traditionalists. But why take these one-riff-Johnnys over a truly dynamic country-rocker like Joe Ely?

The HeadHunters’ driving philosophy--musical and otherwise--seems to be Boogie! , which is fine at a beer bust on Saturday night. The party-hearty sound gives way only occasionally to something brighter (the nicely lazy swing of “Kickin’ Them Blues Around”), but forget about anything deeper. For this crew, which plays Anaheim’s Celebrity Theatre on Friday, spiritual yearning means resurrecting Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky.” Then there’s the new single, a blitzkrieg down memory lane with “The Ballad of Davy Crockett”--yep, the same one all the Baby Boomers once crooned in their faux -coonskin caps. Hey, we all grew up with “I’m a Little Teapot” too, but that doesn’t mean that now we’d like to hear Sting record it.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to five (a classic).