A blast from the past? this is more like a kick in the gut, coupled with an adrenalin rush. Though much of the material on Dodge Main was written a quarter of a century ago – the high-energy he day of Detroit rock – the homecoming reunion of Wayne Kramer (MC5), Deniz Tek (Radio Birdman) and Scott Morgan (Rationals, Sonic's Rendezvous Band) carries nary a riff of elder-statesman nostalgia. It merely recalls how the Motor City was fusing punk attitude and metal dynamics decades before Seattle discovered the marketability of grunge.

Since most of these cuts in their original forms are known only to cultists, Dodge Main offers something more powerful than a rehash of the familiar. Take the album-opening "City Slang," previously heard as an extremely limited-edition single by Sonic's Rendezvous Band, featuring Morgan and a former MC5er, the late Fred "Sonic" Smith. Here, the guitars of Kramer and Tek scream and snarl the way Kramer's once did with Smith's, while Morgan's urgent vocals give the '70s anthem a contemporary charge. Elsewhere, "L.94," from Tek's days with Radio Birdman, finds friendly ground in rude-boy reggae, while the sci-fi apocalypse of "Future/Now" actually improves on the original version from the MC5's High Time album. Among the other highlights, new songs such as Tek's "100 Fools" and the Tek-Kramer composition "Better Than That" give hope that there's more from this collaboration than one-off revivalism. Kramer is credited as the album's producer, but this music sounds less produced than unleashed. For more information, write to Alive Records, PO Box 7112, Burbank, CA 91510. (RS 762)

DON MCLEESE