Punk and Metal Albums Blast Off in All Directions

Nothing fancy in this crop of recent punk- and metal-related releases by local rockers. Mainly, these albums by Fluf, Big Drill Car, the Big F, Mind Over Four and two offshoots of the Adolescents--Rikk Agnew and Pinups--involve guitars blasting and voices yowling, with varying results. The ratings scale runs from * (poor) to **** (excellent). Three stars denote a solid recommendation.

*** Fluf “Mangravy” Headhunter/Cargo

After making a good impression with their previous punk band, Olivelawn, guitarist O and bassist Johnny Donhowe have hooked up with drummer Miles Gillett, who established himself as a mighty basher in El Grupo Sexo and Gherkin Raucous.

The result is, if not one giant leap for punk-kind, at least a solid step forward for the musicians involved.

O (real name, Otis Barthoulameu) is the one making the biggest strides. As a guitarist, he displays a gift for meaty, catchy riffs that are sufficiently tough and enticing to carry a song. He amplifies their intrinsic appeal by constructing well-conceived, multitracked guitar arrangements that let his axes play tag or move en masse.

O didn’t sing in Olivelawn, which makes his capable vocal performance here a nice surprise. His husky-voiced blend of urgency and plaintiveness underscores the emotional growing pains set forth in the songs’ plainly declarative, willfully artless lyrics.

An embattled sense of idealism and even tenderness pokes through the crusty exterior of songs like the opaquely titled “Peanut Butter.” In that one, O manages to turn lines like “Put the lamp shade on, you’re as stupid as me” and “Dis your girlfriend for me, she’s as lame as they come” into a touching profession of friendship.

For cover material, you can’t find anything more idealistic than Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song,” which Fluf, ignoring the song’s reggae origins, essays with an energized buzz of punk guitars.

Even when the lyrics vent spleen--”Hecho del Diablo” is an anti-L.A. screed, while “Degrader” and “Barf” target liars and betrayers, respectively--the fervent vocal delivery conveys as much inner hurt as assaultive anger.

Without being abjectly imitative, Fluf calls to mind Husker Du in its surging, anthem-like chording, melodic accessibility and high emotional pitch.

O’s sardonic streak comes out in “Kim Thayil’s Paw,” a grunge-rock genre exercise (named for the guitarist of Soundgarden) that bashes musicians whose main motivation is trend-hopping careerism. There’s not the least danger of that with Fluf, a substantial, hard-hitting band that never lives down to its name.

(Cargo Records, 4901-906 Morena Blvd., San Diego, Calif., 92117-3432)

** 1/2 Rikk Agnew “Turtle”

*** Pinups “Pinups” Triple X

It would take a very large sheet of paper to diagram the history of the Adolescents, including all the breakups, reformations, personnel changes and offshoots of this seminal, erratic, and twice brilliant (on its 1981 debut album, “Adolescents,” and its 1988 swan song, “Balboa Fun Zone”) O.C. punk band. Here are two new CDs to make the picture even more complicated.

“Turtle,” the third solo album from Rikk Agnew, is another hodgepodge from the former Ads guitarist.

Too much of the album is standard, hard-core punk boilerplate, as Agnew rants inconsequentially about silly stuff (an ode to the ‘70s TV series “Cannon”), spooky stuff (the slasher-flick inspired “Allright”), and stuff that makes him seethe (“Sellout Song,” about commercialized pop, and “Dark Scary Ride,” in which Tom Araya of Slayer lends a guest holler in condemning a would-be groupie who is a “walking, talking factory of STD”).

A cover of the Kinks’ “Give the People What They Want” founders as Agnew’s creaky voice fails to muster the requisite bite (it’s odd that a songwriter who relishes slasher scenarios should cover a song mocking the public’s appetite for media-fed violence).

The raga-inspired title track is a mystical, cultic drone that momentarily makes you wonder whether the Beatles’ exploration of Indian music on “Revolver” was such a good idea after all.

Toss out these bland genre exercises, and you’re left with half an album’s worth of quirky songs that let Agnew adopt a variety of interesting styles and personae.

“Dog Will Hunt” is another slasher-film-inspired hard-core punk number, but its goofy, manic glee lifts it above the routine. The same goes for Agnew’s frenzied, double-tracked babbling as he plays an addled amphetamine eater in “Criddlin the Weld,” a distant cousin to Suicidal Tendencies’ hard-core classic “Institutionalized.”

“Rage of Heartbreak” finds Agnew doing a decent re-creation of the Adolescents’ soaring guitar power-lift with his brother, Frank, another Ads alum. “Song of the Stumblarti” is a funny sing-along about boozers stuck in a bar; it’s an anthem for hoisting a stein too.

“Lifesimpleasures,” a Beastie Boys-style punk/rap song, is enveloped in a growling, angry buzz of low-end sound that contradicts, or at least complicates, its homiletic message: “Life’s simple pleasures are simply the best.”

Agnew comes off like a theatrical Bowie, or a “Rocky Horror Picture Show” cast member, as he delivers “Come Back Eddie.” The song, flavored with ‘50s rock and doo-wop, is addressed to Eddie Joseph, an early mentor of the Fullerton punk scene who dropped out of sight in the mid-’80s.

The stride-piano blues song, “The Grass Is Always Greener on the Other Side,” sounds like Tom Waits impersonating Taj Mahal, and is perhaps the most improbable track on an album that ends, improbably enough, with a luminous, awe-struck hymn from the rocker to his infant daughter. There’s nothing consistent about the solo Agnew, except his inconsistency.

“Pinups,” on the other hand, is a consistently rewarding homage to the punk sources that inspired the Adolescents in the first place.

Rikk Agnew and the Adolescents’ original singer, Tony Montana, were the guiding forces for this all-covers collection of 15 songs, both famous and obscure.

Frank Agnew and Johnny (Two Bags) Wickersham of the Cadillac Tramps came aboard to play punk guitar the way it ought to be played--blazing, non-fastidious, and direct. A fine rhythm section, featuring drummer Mat Young, gives it the requisite drive.

Montana hasn’t lost his old snarl, and rather than abjectly imitate his models, he sings their songs in his own voice, which carries just enough melody to capture the pop-appeal that was a strong element of the best punk rock. Only on the Buzzcocks’ “Harmony in My Head” is he overmatched by the song’s requirements.

Perhaps the world doesn’t really need new, not-radically altered versions of such punk standards as the Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop,” Iggy & the Stooges’ “Search and Destroy,” “White Riot” by the Clash, and the Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer.”

But these versions all get your blood pumping, and “Pinups” (named after David Bowie’s album of ‘60s remakes) makes sure to balance the familiar with obscure nuggets from the likes of Wayne County, the Viletones, F-Word, No Alternative and the Avengers.

A handful of message songs spouting youth-will-be-served slogans might have sounded dated, if not for the zest with which everything is handled here. Ultimately, punk succeeded as a conduit for feelings, not as an agenda for change. It was, and still remains, a way to get out aggressions and feel more alive in the process.

“Pinups” is a fond return to roots for players who still know how to tap into the energy source they discovered half their lifetime ago.

The album’s only big letdown is in the packaging. All we get are Montana’s cryptic recollections of the sessions, which seem to have been somewhat disharmonious (discord is almost to be expected as far as the Adolescents are concerned).

There are no songwriter credits, no listing--let alone thumbnail bios--of the bands that originally performed the songs, and no explanatory bits on why, out of all the wide punk galaxy, the “Pinups” players decided to have a go at these songs.

(Triple X Entertainment, P.O. Box 862529, Los Angeles, Calif., 90086-2529)

** 1/2 The Big F “Patience Peregrine” Chrysalis/FFF

The “F” must stand for “Fibbers.” Evidently embarrassed by their past in the hit Orange County techno-pop band Berlin, John Crawford, the Big F’s bassist and lead singer, and drummer Rob Brill played under assumed surnames on this band’s 1989 debut.

But that album got some good notices for its intense, if derivative, hard-rock sound. Thus encouraged, Crawford and Brill, now based in Los Angeles, are back under their real names for this four-song EP.

Joined again by guitarist Mark Christian, they’re still playing derivative power-trio rock. But the Big F’s intensity and assured craftsmanship makes it worth a listen for those who like raw, head-banging music with an intelligent basis.

The title track is founded on rhythms borrowed from Led Zeppelin, with some tempered grunge in the guitars. It’s a sardonic attack on the Spanish conquistadors, and the religious justifications that accompanied their rapacity.

The softer textures in the song’s middle are a nice touch used to couch the pious self-delusions of soldiers and missionaries who truly thought they were doing God’s work. However, the Big F never gives a personal dimension for its ire, and never draws a link between past and present--as we get in “Cortez the Killer,” Neil Young’s historically flawed but musically breathtaking treatment of the same subject.

“Gone Ancient” sounds like recycled Alice Cooper. “Three Headed Boris” echoes both Led Zeppelin and Rush. “Towed,” about an obsessive love/lust, goes from druggy pleading to an insistent, full-out wail that unabashedly mimics Robert Plant.

If you don’t mind its familiar ring, the Big F is a decent bet for music designed to make your ears ring. The Big F opens for the Vandals on Friday at Bogart’s in Long Beach, (310) 594-8975, and headlines Sunday at California Dreams in Anaheim, (714) 828-3000.

** 1/2 Mind Over Four “Half Way Down” Restless

Punk-metal is a baleful genre, but Mind Over Four, as the title of its fifth album tells us, is only “Half Way Down.” Singer Spike Xavier and guitarist Mike Jensen, the band’s primary songwriters, are able to look toward the light outside the cave even as they are enshrouded by the gloom within.

The band continues to emphasize musical flexibility: there is no grungy leadenness here. Mind Over Four’s music moves unpredictably through oft-shifting textures and episodic structures, its playing so well-honed and disciplined that it sometimes recalls the demanding, hard-edged progressive-rock of King Crimson.

The band also continues to develop melodically, although it is progressing more slowly than one would have hoped. It still has a way to go in finding a more accessible and melodically coherent framework for Xavier’s powerhouse wail than the diffuse, operatic style he favors.

The album’s best rocker, “Then and Now,” cannily combines a funk undercurrent with Hendrixy riffing and “Gimme Shelter” piano--elements well-suited to the song’s reflection on whether the ‘60s counterculture had all the answers. Mind Over Four concludes that it didn’t--but instead of lapsing into fashionable cynicism it keeps searching for answers of its own.

(Restless Records, Dept. K, P.O. Box 6420, Hollywood, Calif., 90028)

** 1/2 Big Drill Car “Toured” Headhunter/Cargo

Big Drill Car has always been a competent, hard-driving band with a decent concept: infusing pop melody with punk thrust and some metal guitar-noise. But it somehow misses the ingredient that might lift it from solid to special.

No extra something materializes on “Toured,” a live album recorded at a 1991 New York club gig. The band’s virtues are all here as it ranges purposefully through 10 songs from its three studio releases, plus a strained, completely earnest cover of Billy Joel’s “Big Shot.”

What might that missing ingredient be? More stylistic diversity, more melodic range (BDC numbers start sounding the same after a while), more clarity in Frank Daly’s singing, more--or any--use of harmony.

Confirmed fans may want “Toured” as a document of Big Drill Car’s original lineup--Daly and guitarist Mark Arnold now operate with a new rhythm section.

For the curious newcomer, the albums “Batch” or “Album Type Thing” would be a better starting point. Big Drill Car offers too few contrasting flavors to make a live sampler of its work very involving.