UGLY KID JOE

“As Ugly as They Wanna Be”

Stardog/PolyGram

*

Never mind Nirvana; here’s the bollocks.

Now that punk-rock is finally a mass-consumption item, we may live to regret it, if Ugly Kid Joe is any indication of what we can expect to smell rolling through the open floodgates.

The inevitable product of a college town full of kids with too much time on their hands, the Isla Vista-based UKJ puts together wacky, we’re-just-joshin’ songs about serial killers, the joy of alcohol abuse and hating thy neighbor as thyself; sets ‘em to a standard pop-metal-thrash tempo; throws the hair around a little; wears tres -trendy shorts as if they were Beatle suits, and purports to remember when rock was fun.

Man, if they had just come up with all this 10 years ago . . . well, it would’ve been stupid then, too.

It all might appeal to anyone too young to remember the Ramones and too impatient to deal with the relative headiness of Anthrax. Will appeal, we should say, for “Ugly”--a sub-negligible EP that features four self-delightedly bone-headed originals and one Black Sabbath nugget--is already racing up the charts, presaging a full album to come. May the band’s notoriety be every bit as long-lasting as that of the rap group they borrowed their record title from.

Albums are rated on a scale one star (poor) to four (excellent).