ALBUM REVIEW : Bravo for Joyride’s First Trip

Joyride: “Johnny Bravo”, Doctor Dream * * *

Good rock bands take after Muhammad Ali: They float like a butterfly on melody’s inviting breeze, then sting like a bee, blasting the body and head with rocking uppercuts and jabs. Never failing to meet that standard of catchiness-with-clout, Joyride takes its first swing and comes close to scoring a knockout, establishing itself as a more than worthy contender on the independent-alternative rock scene.

The opening moments of the first song, “Take a Chance,” herald the basic premise. The curtain rises on a hooky, Beatles-style lead guitar riff. Then, from underneath, comes the heavy pummeling of a fast, roughhouse rhythm attack. Voila: a band equally at home with the rudest punk and the purest pop.

Greg Antista, who wrote and sang five of the tracks, has a grainy, gritty voice that can carry a tune reasonably well, but relies mainly on attitude, after the fashion of the Replacements’ Paul Westerberg. Steve Soto, who wrote the other six songs, has the vocal range and earnest delivery to sing pure pop. But when he reaches the brink of sweetness, Soto will pull back and get growly, making sure that the ride doesn’t become too smooth. Soto’s skills come into play in the fine, multitracked vocal harmonies that give Joyride’s arrangements a fullness and resourcefulness impressive for a hard-rocking band.

Mike McKnight is a gem of a lead guitarist. Simultaneously crisp and raucous, his playing is powerful enough to grab the ear, and smart enough not to dominate a band whose focus is songs, not sounds. Woven through the album are a bevy of classy guitar influences, among them Pete Townshend, Yardbirds-vintage Jimmy Page, Keith Richards-doing-Chuck Berry, Hendrix-doing-”All Along the Watchtower,” and early-Traffic Steve Winwood.

Drummer Sandy Hanson isn’t fastidious about his work, on the grounds that it’s a lot more fun to go for the excitement of acceleration and deceleration than to keep a meticulous beat. Don Henley would never hire him, but in Joyride he’s perfect.

The songwriting is intelligent and direct. Soto and Antista both deal with the emotional stakes of domestic situations in shambles, of economic prospects and familial expectations that go unfulfilled. Instead of wallowing in bitterness and depression, they point toward the positive value of holding onto one’s embattled selfhood.

Antista’s romantic breakup song, “Sleep a Little Longer,” humorously chronicles some of the little things that can sour a live-in relationship (an entertainment diet of “cheap wine and reruns,” a habit of leaving the toilet seat up). There are also wry touches in “Home,” Soto’s tale of aimless life in a decrepit communal pad (the song comes off as a melancholy sequel to the Adolescents’ punk favorite, “Kids of the Black Hole”). In both cases, the humorous details add to the sense of truth and realness in the songs, which ultimately makes them all the more poignant.

Only one song, “Daydreaming on the Frontline,” is concerned with politics that go beyond the personal. Inspired by news footage of Central American carnage, it is a stormy, anguished cry over hopes dashed by daily violence. Never mind El Salvador--the song can stand as a trenchant comment on dashed dreams and daily violence along the front lines of Southern California gang turf.

The 11 songs on “Johnny Bravo” sprint by in 35 minutes--a brevity that stems more from the aesthetics of the classic pop single, which crams an assortment of ideas into a three-minute package, than from the single-minded slam-bam frenzy of punk. The worst thing about rock in the compact-disc age is that bad or mediocre albums can now drag on for an hour or more, trying to make up in bloat what they lack in inspiration. As serious as its songs are, Joyride has delivered a filler-free debut that lives up to the band’s name.