THE TRAGIC END of the late Sid Vicious could not have come at a worse time for the Ramones. In his inimitable fashion, Vicious, ever the loser, managed with his fatal taste for smack and violence to sour promoters around the country on anything that smells remotely like punk.

And the Ramones, with their new album Road to Ruin, certainly reek of the back alleys and cheap drugs that keep them well on the punk side of the new wave. But if Vicious's last fling hides Road in the wreckage it will be quite a loss, for this latest release is the perfect album to let loose--loud--on your turntable for those moments when Fleetwood Mac just can't soothe your soul.

Not that the Ramones will soothe you. But this album shows that the Ramones are really learning how to play their instruments. It boasts good hard rock and roll with no compromise with the middle of the road. The album only falls short when the band leaves the basic punk pattern and tries either lyrically or musically to make some real statement.

The first tune on the album, "I Want to be Sedated," is the best piece on the disc. It has a good hook, and the lyrics capture elegantly the urge for a temporary lobotomy:

20-20-24 hours to go

I wanna be sedated

Nothing to do, nowhere to go

I wanna be sedated.

GO MENTAL", the next song, uses hard-driving guitars and drums and a standard, half-strangled vocal line from Joey Ramone. The only shock comes when Johnny Ramone breaks into a lead riff. It's not that spectacular--Jerry Garcia has nothing to fear yet--but it's there and it's not bad. The entire band has come a long way from their first albums, when songs like "I Want to Sniff Some Glue" sounded like the band had been playing music for about two weeks, which wasn't too far off.

The slow tune of the album, "Questioningly," marks out the band's new dimensions. The song doesn't quite work; one can't take too seriously any of the Ramones saying anything like "I don't love you anymore/What do you want to talk to me for/You should have let me walk by/Memories make me cry." But still it's a nice, actually mellow song that proves the Ramones might even be able to make it in the mainstream if they wanted to.

Not that they seem to want to. The rest of the first side of the album with songs like "Bad Brain" and "It's a Long Way Back" fit well into standard punk molds: perfect 4/4 time, straight drum beat and guitar lines with the subtlety of a jack hammer, or a seal-clubbing expedition.

"I Just Want to Have Something to Do", which opens the flip side of Road, take the band right back to their roots. It is pure punk, with a chorus that catches the essence of punk philosophy--

Hanging out all by myself

I don't want to be with anyone else

I just want to be with you