By DALE ANDERSON

THE GOO GOO DOLLS aren't the usual sort of headbangers that turn up on Metal Blade Records. Even the folks at Metal Blade concede this. For all the high-energy noise they make, they're too irreverent, too light on their feet and too much fun to qualify as true heavy metal warriors.

Metal Blade made an exception in their case. The rationale for this can be heard on the first Goo Goo Dolls release for the label, Jed (Death/Metal Blade 73406-1 Enigma), a reckless, rip-snorting album that packs 14 tracks into less than 35 minutes.

A maniac laugh, triphammering drums and slashing guitar launch the lead-off "Out of Sight" like a drag racer burning rubber when the starting light goes green. Almost buried in the roar, but not quite, is the snarl with which singer Robbie Goo Goo confronts a snob of his acquaintance. "You were so cool in high school," he rages, "but now I'm in your face."

But that's nothing compared to the second song, "Up Yours." The four-letter invective flies as the singer heaps abuse on a chronic self-pitier: "You shake your stupid head and you wish that you were dead/And I swear sometimes you're happier than me."

The album's first single, "No Way Out," which appeared on last year's "We Killed McKinley" compilation, is the best of this misfit trilogy which starts the record. It upshifts again with a burst of Johnny Goo Goo's supercharged guitar as Robbie bewails his own stupidity at pursuing a romantic interest who leaves him waiting in the rain, then collapses into its refrain.

The song that's likely to get them widespread attention, however, is their remake of Creedence Clearwater Revival's anthem to basic music-making, "Down on the Corner." The Goo Goo Dolls electrify it with their usual fury, but they also have a secret weapon -- veteran local R&B singer Lance Diamond, who gives soulful assurance to the band's high spirits.

Underneath all their contemporary fury, though, the Goo Goo Dolls have the pop sensibilities of a '60s band, a point that's underlined by the naturalness of their rendition of the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" and the delightfully quirky acoustic finale, "James Dean," a grainy folkish vocal-and-guitar number in which the singer-narrator daydreams about escaping his humdrum life by imitating the actor, then is brought to a sudden about-face.

"Jed" retains all the brashness and manic humor that fueled the Goo Goo Dolls' 1987 debut, but it's much more adept at focusing the trio's energies. Credit some of that to experience -- the band is writing and playing better -- and some of that to producer Armand John Petri, who guided the sessions at Trackmaster Studios here.

Ordinarily, this reviewer would recommend the compact disc or vinyl version of an album over the cassette, but not in the case of "Jed." The vinyl comes without the production credits which are included with the tape and CD. The cassette, meanwhile, does something the compact disc doesn't do. It sends all those equalizer lights straight to the top of their range, which is the way the Goo Goo Dolls play.