Maybe they weren't the brightest and best, but for a while Generation X seemed like a sure thing among British bands, New Wave division. Though disparaged in their country's hyperthyroid music press, the group's singles sold well, and their concerts were practically riotous. Dyed-blond singer Billy Idol attracted female teenypunks who'd outgrown the Bay City Rollers, and Generation X' energetic crossbreeding of punk with heavy metal almost excused the puerile lyrics.

But that was last year. These guys kept a relatively low profile while cutting their second album, but Valley of the Dolls sounds like punk apostasy even in the context of fashionable anti-New Wave backlash. It's not just that the tempos have cooled down or even that Ian Hunter's production enshrouds the band in Mott the Hoople-like murk.

On their first LP, ridiculous polemics ("Youth Youth Youth" and "Wild Youth") meshed perfectly with near-hysterical music (guitarist Bob "Derwood" Andrews is a confessed Ritchie Blackmore fan). On Valley of the Dolls, Generation X has presumably progressed to rococo punk: Idol still delivers lyrics in a hoarse sneer, but infantile directness has been replaced by infantile obliqueness. The music wanders around engagingly—the playing remains powerful, even through the haze— yet aimlessly, like a lost puppy. That said, this record is too puzzling to dismiss altogether, unless you have no patience for flubbed rock neural connections. (RS 294)

SCOTT ISLER