Sloppy Seconds

Playing unassailable melody punk (New York Dolls meet the Ramones, circa 1977), this tight and talented Indianapolis junk-culture quartet has the intelligence to sing “I Don’t Wanna Be a Homosexual” (the first track on Destroyed, and not one of those recycled from the four-song EP) without a trace of homophobia and the psychotronic skill to build a catchy surfpunk song out of 1964’s Horror of Party Beach. When Sloppy Seconds visit the video store — to borrow dialogue from John Waters’ Female Trouble or rue the removal of Traci Lords from the porno shelves — these gulcher hounds really get on to something. However, too many of the songs on Destroyed, despite their sturdy musical merits, are just simple Ramones derivatives (“Janie Is a Nazi,” “Time Bomb,” “I Want ‘Em Dead”) and don’t offer the same degree of fun.