Loose, sloppy and almost dublike, the Fleshtones' new album, Hexbreaker!, is a rearview-mirror study in fun. The particular musical intersection in question is located in the mid-Sixties, when the progeny of the baby-boom decade were first driven to a feverish frenzy with speed and plunged into epistemological chaos with LSD. Some might call the music of that brief era acid-punk, and listening to Hexbreaker! is a psychotically energizing flashback into the world of bad biker-movie soundtracks, the Chocolate Watch Band and Davie Allan and the Arrows (to name but a few).

The eleven cuts on Hexbreaker! aren't songs so much as frantic jams that the needle has dropped in on midway. Fuzztone guitar, honking saxes, trebly Farfisas and a tough-talking lead singer all vie for attention in the manner of a street-corner free-for-all. The beat is primitive, and the message ain't pretty: "Phony society, we reject your false values," states 'Tones singer Peter Zaremba in the bilious rant "New Scene." That the group would place this "message" song nearby such ersatz delights as "Screamin' Skull" (about copping pills in east L.A., near as I can make out) and an instrumental raveup poignantly titled "Legend of a Wheelman" only confirms their genius. (RS 404)

PARKE PUTERBAUGH