Two of the most established names in catchy, modern punk share the name Armstrong. Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and Rancid/ Operation Ivy's Tim Armstrong not only launched the mid-1990s' second wave punk craze, but they also wrote its most memorable songs and albums. So it makes sense that pop-punk's latest underground sensation, the Distillers, is armed with an Armstrong of its own — singer Brody Armstrong. (To clear up any confusion, Billie and Tim aren't related, but Brody is married to Tim.)

The L.A.-based quartet's ruggedly hooky debut shares a baked-on-the-street-bubblegum-'n'-snot ambience with its brethren. Brody shares with her hubby the dry-heave rasp that's as much Joe Strummer as it is Rocky Balboa, and a knack for penning radio-compatible-but-pit-respectable mohican anthems. All 14 tracks (plus the hidden ballad one minute after the album's closer) fall somewhere between the Go-Go's debut, "Beauty and the Beat," and Rancid's sophomore offering, "Let's Go." The album's opener, "Oh Serena" (RealAudio excerpt), beats down an "Our Lips Are Sealed"-themed and -styled chorus — in which Brody shrieks "Oh Serena, I know what they're saying about you" — with a grizzled gutter-groove à la Rancid's "Nihilism."

Brody's sidewalk poetics have a salt-of-the-earth transcendence reminiscent of proto-punk Patti Smith — "Gypsy Lee Rose" begins with the hippie-punk line, "When I see you lay down under pink lacquered skies, baby I'll give you something that will shut your eyes," and "Open Sky" is the Distiller's "People Have the Power" (it's no surprise they cover Smith's "Ask the Angels"). This is a solid "here-are-our-influences" debut from a promising 2-year-old combo — let's hope the next effort is their "this-is-who-we-are" masterpiece.