*** D Generation

THROUGH THE DARKNESS

(Columbia)

There's something quaint and sweetly naive about a band who still use razorlike guitars and jackhammer rhythms to rail with Holden Caulfield-like disgust at a world of brutality and hypocrisy. Singer Jesse Malin's lyrics round up the usual suspects: bigotry ("Hatred," "Chinatown"), organized religion ("Sunday Secret Saints"), drugs ("Only a Ghost," "So Messed Up," "Cornered"), and all-purpose teenage alienation ("Helpless," "Lonely"). And corporate rock still sucks ("Every Mother's Son," "Rise & Fall," "Sick on the Radio"), even though D Generation are working for Sony.

Along the way, they pay lyrical homage to several influences: early Elvis Costello (whom they resemble in pop hookiness), the Clash (righteous outrage), and Bad Religion (harmonies, utter humorlessness). Indeed, at least in New York's East Village, D Generation remain the only band who matter, less for the bitter frustration Malin expresses in his Green Day-like pseudo-cockney snarl than for their ineluctable rhythmic ferocity. Lead-guitarist Danny Sage, bassist Howie Pyro, drummer Michael Wildwood, and new rhythm-guitarist Todd Youth work together like fingers on a clenched fist. So one resists the urge to tell Malin to lighten up -- or grow up -- lest D Generation temper their blazing purity. After all, someone still has to keep the punk flame for this kind of rock.

-- Gary Susman