You could say that Eric Gentry is a big Descendents fan. Currently, Gentry’s wife is pregnant with their first son, who will be named Milo after Milo Auckerman, the vocalist of the goofy ’80s hardcore band known for songs including “I Like Food” and “My Dad Sucks.” When Gentry decided to record the full-length debut CD of his pop-punk band The Adorkables, he traveled all the way to Fort Collins, Colo., so he could lay down tracks in Blasting Room Studios, which was built by members of the Descendents and their offshoot group ALL.

The result of the Salinas quartet’s journey to Colorado is the 12-song She Loves Me Not, which will be celebrated with a CD release party this Friday at Giovane’s. The album begins with the tuneful, driving pop-punk of “Brokenhearted” and includes an ode to an indie film star (“Christina Ricci”), where the song’s chorus is simply: “Christina Ricci/ Christina Ricci’s pretty.”

Meanwhile, “Nenci,” which is about meeting a girl at the mall, is the sort of punk rock that parents would want their kids to listen to. It ends with the lines: “We went for coffee just one time/ I thought that I could make her mine/ She asked if I wanted to get high/ When I said no, she said goodbye.”

The mall is something The Adorkables know pretty well. A few weeks ago, the band performed inside Del Monte Shopping Center’s Hot Topic clothing store to a crowd that included screaming teenage girls. They also appeared in Northridge Mall’s Hot Topic last week, where they gave away free copies of She Loves Me Not.

This past June, The Adorkables performed for their largest crowds yet at Baltimore’s Insubordination Fest, a three-day concert featuring queercore act Pansy Division and longtime punkers The Dead Milkmen. The band’s debut is being released by Insubordination Records, a pop-punk label with a roster that includes the Backseat Virgins and the Kung Fu Monkeys.

While being on the Maryland-based Insubordination Records is sure to introduce The Adorkables to some new fans, the band has also secured two of their songs on the soundtrack of an upcoming indie horror movie titled Trippin’, which Gentry says will be screened at the Cannes International Film Festival. One song is a paean to the 1981 Sam Raimi horror classic The Evil Dead, which is appropriately titled “The Evil Dead,” and the other is “Without You,” a number about sweaty, nervous love.

While their live sets include originals from She Loves Me Not and a four-song EP titled In the After Hours, there is something noticeably absent from the band’s repertoire: covers of Descendents songs. Matter of fact, the only non-Adorkables track the Salinas band does is a version of the Wyoming pop-punk band The Lillingtons’ “Mind Control.”

“It’s really catchy,” Gentry says. “It’s short, easy to learn and fun to play.”

THE ADORKABLES, OUR HEARTS ALIVE AND EXHIBIT A PLAY starting 8:30pm Friday, Sept. 11, at Giovane’s, 348 San Juan Road, Salinas. $8. 444-6717.