The sandblasted bleat of Crash and Burn’s " Kill a Punk for Rock and Roll " — my pick for local rock song of the year thus far — comes off less as a series of quick chord changes than as the roar of shifting gears: down one, up one, up another, slam on the brakes, do it again. It’s built on the same gas-fume muscle-car howl that signified the motor in the MC5’s " Kick Out the Jams " — except " Kill a Punk " has an extra gear, a frighteningly potent screaming-Dio guitar lead, and a singer who’s falling off the back end of some black-lunged alcoholocaust blackout.

" Kill a Punk " is the opening song on the quartet’s brilliant homonymous album (on the Rodent Popsicle label), a rendering of the rock-and-roll disease that’s cruder than Zeke and crueler than Dave Weindorf’s hangover. The next tune, " Swear to God, " downshifts into pulverizing Sabb-sludge, like Ozzy’s tour bus rolling over Axl’s posterior and then backing up for good measure. " I Love Trash " is a version of the same Sesame Street classic that Steven Tyler covered a few years back, here rendered as if Tyler’d done it 20 years ago in a Mexican cock-fighting shack stocked with half a dozen squirrelly Tijuana hookers, Lemmy Kilmister, and a pile of laxative-cut Bolivian smack. On " Catholic School Girls in Trouble " our drug-fiend narrator defiles a petulant young thing with gifts of rock — of both the cocaine and Ride the Lightning–era Metallica varieties — and then offers her a deal she can’t refuse: " You show me how to smile/I’ll teach you how to kneel. "

Even before I heard " Kill a Punk for Rock and Roll, " I had an inkling I was gonna like it. After all, I’m a big fan of the album they stole the title from: in the art for the Oblivians’ Popular Favorites (Crypt), there’s a picture — rumored to have been taken at a Black Sabbath show in the ’70s — of a long-haired mustachio’d hesher wearing a homemade T-shirt bearing that particular slogan. " Yeah, that’s where I got it, " admits bassist Jef Artiaco, standing in the band’s hopelessly cramped seven-by-nine-foot practice space. " But I didn’t tell the other guys until much later. "

" He made his own shirt just like it, " says singer/guitarist Billy Brown, " with the same ’70s iron-on letters and everything. And I always loved it, and I thought there needed to be a song with the refrain ‘Kill a Punk for Rock and Roll.’ It wasn’t until afterward that I found out where it was from. And actually, we just found out on our last tour that Jeff from Zeke used to be in a band in LA that had a song called ‘Kill a Punk for Rock and Roll’ too. "

The song, and the slogan, are paradigmatic for the fastest-growing subgenre in the underground: (barely) reformed hardcore rats who’ve found their footing in the less dogmatic wilds of sleazy, free-range rock and roll. " The main thing I thought of when I started this band was, like, the Dwarves meets Grand Funk Railroad, " says Billy. " I wanna play shows where women take their tops off, I don’t wanna play shows where people beat each other up. Fuck that shit. "

Billy, Jef, and drummer Brendan Jones all emigrated from small-town Connecticut in the early ’90s, drifting through the usual panoply of subsistence-level hardcore bands, including Shoot the Hostages and the Pinkerton Thugs. Lead-guitarist Phil Valentine emigrated to the States from the (then) Soviet Union at the age of eight, before the end of the Cold War, and he retains the traditional Russian love for American metal of the ’80s. His bandmates are still trying to convince him it’s not cool to wear bandannas on stage; they’re less picky about his playing, which gives the band an apoplectic, pyrotechnic snarl.

Although the album hasn’t gotten much local exposure (Crash and Burn were busy cobbling together a couple of US tours, even as they struggled to get gigs here at home), it’s been out for a while. It was recorded a year and a half ago with Don Fury, the engineer renowned for his work with pioneering New York hardcore bands like Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today, and Agnostic Front; the band have since recorded a new, as-yet-unreleased session with Fury that will form the basis of their next album. " My bread and butter wasn’t early New York hardcore, though, " says Billy. " It was early California hardcore — Black Flag and Circle Jerks. Black Flag, My War, side two: that’s responsible for everything that’s good about heavy music that’s happened since Black Sabbath. "

In addition to crusty, cantankerous Bay Area gutterpunk, Crash and Burn are also partial to the craggy, mongoloid end of classic rock: Cactus, Deep Purple’s " Space Truckin’, " Blue Cheer. On occasion they’ve been known to cover Aerosmith (a predictable choice) and Cat Stevens (an unlikely one, especially since it’s a remarkably straight version of " Wild World " ). They’ll get to put those tastes to good use soon: they’re slated to release a split-seven-inch EP with Zeke on which both bands will cover songs by Grand Funk and Blue Cheer. Crash and Burn play the Middle East upstairs with Toxic Narcotic, Tommy & the Terrors, and the Profits this Saturday, August 25.

We wouldn’t dare declare there’s anything so organized as a " movement " afoot, but the bowels they are a quakin’, and something’s bound to come slithering out. Crash and Burn are head of the class, but suddenly there’s scads of blistering rock action in town. A couple of weeks ago, the Fast Actin’ Fuses packed the Middle East upstairs for a 9:30 opening slot — not bad for their second-ever gig. Tattoo’d head Fuse Lovely Kevin Darling babbles and squeals like Tesco Vee and Handsome Dick Manitoba locked in a cripple-baiting contest; the tunes are like AC/DC outtakes that’ve been sent away to Poison Idea’s charm school. The source of their misterioso superpowers is revealed on " Cocaine Samurai, " a set highlight that’s sorta like Drunk on Cock–era New Bomb Turks assuming the position next to Accept’s " Balls to the Wall. " Plus, the recorded version (see mp3.com) bears the telltale one-note piano solo of dyed-in-the-wool Stooges fetishism. Cred? Lovely Kevin once fronted the sub-G.G. scumfuck band Masterbleed, who were so terrible that Anal Cunt’s Seth Putnam owns two copies; some of the other guys were in awful hardcore bands like Razorwire and Bastard Squad. An album is said to be in the works. Meantime, see ’em live: they’re the only band in town with the gonads to cover Turbonegro’s " Rock Against Ass. "

A while back, Ghetto Thunder could be seen bashing out all-instrumental sets that sounded like Guitar Wolf caught in a bear trap. Someone must’ve told ’em they oughta get a singer, so now the bass player barks hirsute hound-dog hokum about dope-sick rodeo clowns and the like. But the first song on the trio’s homonymous disc doesn’t have any vocals, and even if the track weren’t called " Car Crash, " you’d surmise it’s unsafe at any speed. Credited to " The Ghetto Thunders " on the intentionally misprinted CD label, it’s too fast to dance to (hell, from the evidence, it’s too fast to drum to) but wild enough to make you try. They’ve got the speed, squalor, and sneer of early-’80s hardcore while somehow finding room for the gangly menace of Link Wray and a shuffling swagger descended from Chuck Berry. Known to cover G.G. Allin tunes, they’ve graduated to tackling San Francisco class-of-’76 dropouts Crime, whose " Rock and Roll Enemy No. 1 " appears on the disc; but the best thing here is GT’s own snotty three-chord garage bomb " I Don’t Care. "

The Humanoids’ ’70s Kiss fixation comes through loud and clear, especially on their current single " Dirty Moves, " which might be the best trailer-park aphrodisiac since, um, either the Hellacopters cover of Sabbath’s " Dirty Women " or " Love Gun " itself. " You can’t resist my ass! " yowls singer Clay N. Ferno. And if you doubt him for a second, check out the dirty moves he drags out on stage: his down-on-my-knees pleading and rock-with-me conducting would make Joe Elliott and Steve Perry blush. The single’s flip side is about how cool the Incredible Hulk is. But aside from that single comic-book reference, the rest of their set is a re-revisitation of metal’s garage days: hooks early and often, taut mid-tempo stomp instead of death-race rush, and a rockabilly ghoul who plays better Ace Frehley leads than half of Sweden. The Humanoids appear tonight (Thursday, August 23) at Beckett’s Pub, at Packard’s Corner in Brighton.

Ever since Sinners & Saints went on hiatus, I’ve been searching for a fix of flame-throwing, GNR-meets-Social-Distortion bruiser anthems, and damned if suburban dead boys White Trash Deluxe don’t fit the bill. No beatin’ around the bush on where these kids are coming from: their five-song demo takes up where the Scandinavian cock rock of Backyard Babies, the Peepshows, and Psychopunch leaves off — with a little Hollywood Boulevard debauchery thrown in. My pick to click, " Cracker Box, " gets down and dirty at the crossroads of . . . And Out Come the Wolves–era Rancid, " Too Fast for Love " –era Mötley Crüe, and Slave to the Grind–era Skid Row. Now if only someone’d get ’em to change the name to something that doesn’t sound like a happy meal. White Trash Deluxe play the Abbey Lounge this Saturday, August 25, and T.T. the Bear’s Place on September 4.