There is no better sales pitch for the snot-rock classicism and teenage-warfare spirit of D Generation than "No Way Out." No Lunch marks the third time 'round for this New York band's signature missile – first rendered with crisp enthusiasm on a 1992 indie 45, then damn near flattened by ham-fisted production on the '94 EMI album D Generation – but the payload is better off for the long haul. Richard Bacchus' and Danny Sage's guitars spit bullets, singer Jesse Malin seethes with rabid impatience – "Call us fags and call us phonies/But I make the ginamone/And you hate it 'cause I shake it/And I'm on my way" – and producer Ric Ocasek leaves well enough alone, goosing the headlong, screw-you vibe with a subtle, no-sugar touch. Never mind that, best as I can tell, there is no such word as ginamone; it sounds great.

Erupting like Alice Cooper's "Eighteen" on a CBGB-hardcore-matinee bender, the '96 "No Way Out" is an old-school Noo Yawk-in-flames thriller in the deathless tradition of the Dictators, the Heartbreakers and Ohio emigrants the Dead Boys. Almost everything else on No Lunch is just as tough, taut and charged with manic adolescent panic. "Scorch" is 1:16 of pure attitude and guitar arson; "Not Dreaming" is a high-speed snorter with a sleek vocal hook. The glam-blitz tension of "Frankie," also resurrected from the EMI album and spiced with the ghoulish croon of Suicide's Alan Vega, showcases how D Generation, and Malin in particular, can vividly deliver even a redundant homily like "What you are is just what you are" as if it's punk-rock Shakespeare.

The band sounds a bit stiff when it cuts the tempo and opts for melodrama. "Disclaimer" is a wooden blend of eyeliner-era Mott the Hoople and the Clash's Give 'Em Enough Rope. "She Stands There" gets by more on zip than melody and text. But Malin, Sage, Bacchus, bassist Howie Pyro and drummer Michael Wildwood embrace the values of aggressive brevity; the entire album, minus the silly secret bonus track, lasts 34 minutes. The whiplash joys of "Waiting for the Next Big Parade" and D Generation's whiz through Reagan Youth's mosh-pit biscuit "Degenerated" also attest to D Generation's great taste in pop choruses trashed with breathless corrosion.

As songwriters, D Generation may still be on a learning curve, but they've already got one stone classic under their belts in "No Way Out." No Lunch gives you every reason to expect more where that came from. (RS 743)

DAVID FRICKE