The Surrealist novelist Lautréamont once described the hero of his Les Chants de Maldoror as being "as handsome as the fortuitous encounter on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella." The appeal of the Rezillos is similar. This five-piece Scottish group yokes pop music's zippy melodies and catchy/banal lyrics to rock & roll's jangling guitars and aggressive snarling.

The Rezillos undeniably extend Surrealism's sober/silly demeanor to the making of musical art/trash. They pound out self-explanatory songs ("Flying Saucer Attack," "Top of the Pop's" "I Can't Stand My Baby") that are good, hard fun. But this band is also capable of carrying the fun into sublime precincts, as in "(My Baby Does) Good Sculptures," the first time within memory that the narrator of a raw pop rocker woos his love object via his adoration for her artwork. The sound of "(My Baby Does) Good Sculptures" is thick and intense, Jo Callis' guitar and William Mysterious' bass throwing themselves on top of each other like football players scrambling for a fumble. At the bottom of the heap, vocalist Eugene Reynolds keens out earnest, ecstatic praise.

Many of Can't Stand the Rezillos' "13 Cuts" (as a proud little badge brags on the back cover) are sung by Fay Fife, whose stentorian style and phrasing resemble that of Blondie's Deborah Harry. But there's nothing of the sexpot in Fife, and the grim grin behind her recitation of "Top of the Pops" lends this thin, cute song a gravity that makes you want to hear it more than once. Novelty is definitely transcended.

Elsewhere, the Rezillos thunder and blunder some pop cover versions, the best of which is a harsh and heartfelt "I Like It." There's also a lot of streamlined punk such as "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked in Tonight," but the anger is undercut by a feeling that the band is shocked to hear itself endorsing such vehement threats. The Rezillos are ironists with a sharp sense of the slap-happy, and they wrestle rock & roll onto the dissecting table with the placid assurance of underweight sumo wrestlers. Appropriately demented and effete ones, to be sure. (RS 278)

KEN TUCKER