On the tune "I don't know," too Much Joy expresses the kind of truth that Madonna herself might not dare to speak: "I'm ahead of my time – but only by a week."

The lads in Too Much Joy are too smart to feign originality, but they offer something that is just as rare: a genuine sense of humor. "I've never met the poor," sing these four suburban children who were inspired to rock by the snotty sass of punk, "but all my friends are broke."

The Joys are goofballs with guitars. On the liner notes to Mutiny, the group's third album, they cheerfully admit to being too cheap to pay $1000 to sample "Clash City Rockers." No matter, for on tunes like "Parachute" and "Sorry," they sound like the Clash without the sanctimonious gas. While the Clash pretended to have answers, the Joys are happy to assault us with confusing questions and assorted absurdities.

Like the Clash, though. Too Much Joy would like nothing more than to be the Who. The gleefully rocking "Donna Everywhere" is a latter-day "Pictures of Lily" – if Lily were a nymphomaniac instead of a pinup. You can also hear the Who in Tommy Vinton's thumping drums, in the way Jay Blumenfield's guitar mixes slashing rhythms and sustained, single-note tones and in the boisterous back-ground vocals that seem to leap straight from the pub to the studio. None of this is virtuoso stuff, but it's got spirit to spare.

Two songs sum up the album. "Starry Eyes" is a cover of a catchy punk-era semihit by the Records, with lyrics rewritten to recount the time Too Much Joy got arrested down in Broward County, Florida, for performing rock versions of the songs of 2 Live Crew. The point the puckish white guys wanted to make was that the sexist black guys had a constitutional right to be offensive.

And "Stay at Home" offers solace and sound advice for those sticking around on a Friday night when everybody else goes out to play: "Turn the stereo on if I want to," go the lyrics, "turn it up real loud." (RS 647)

JOHN MILWARD