**1/2 Auntie Christ

LIFE COULD BE A DREAM

(Lookout!)

When Exene Cervenka joined John Doe in the shout-sung refrain of "We're desperate" on 1981's seminal Wild Gift, she sounded as if she really meant it. A decade and a half later, with X officially on the rocks, Doe out of the picture, and Cervenka (who seems to have changed her surname to Cervenkova) fronting a band featuring X drummer DJ Bonebrake and Rancid bassist Matt Freeman, she may be every bit as desperate. But too often on Auntie Christ's 10-song, punk-rock debut she just sounds cranky. "Why can't you all be punk?" she challenges the kids of today on "Nothing Generation," a brisk rocker in which she observes, "Nothing generation lives where something used to be. . . . They're not into Johnny Thunders 'cause he's not on MTV."

Yeah, well, last time I checked Thunders was dead and X were veteran leaders of a renegade pack of American bands who'd refused to be shackled to rock's past. That said, after X's last few awkwardly slick and misguided crossover attempts, it's refreshing to hear Exene return to her own roots and play some old-fashioned, Wild Gift-style punk with Bonebrake and Freeman. Who knows, it might even get her on MTV, where she could wear her Johnny Thunders T-shirt.

-- Matt Ashare