Keith Morris once described his brief tenure as Black Flag's lead singer by saying, "I was the Tasmanian devil, the court jester; I was the dog on the chain who was let out of the cage." So it made sense that after the beer-swilling frontman decided to move on, he would form a band even less subtle and more obnoxious than Black Flag (who represented punk rock at its most brutal in 1979). Group Sex, the first "album" from Morris' group the Circle Jerks, barrels through 14 songs in just under 16 minutes, and pretty much defined the state of the art in SoCal hardcore, circa 1980: raging minor-chord guitar bashing (courtesy of Greg Hetson, later in Bad Religion), speedy drumming (Lucky Lehrer punctuates his manic four-four stomp with short, frantic rolls whenever possible), and a bassist (Roger Rogerson) trying to keep up with it all while Morris bellows abou ... Read more »

Released a decade after the recently posted Seizure, Beat doesn't skip a beat in terms of delivering catchy, up-beat pop songs. The Tall Dwarfesque tape loops have been stripped down somewhat since, and replaced with rather minimal drum machine beats. You won't find too many weird sound fx, but a lot of empathic singing. At times, Chris is getting a bit too ambitious with his vocals - he can't really deliver the tonal range he's aiming for - and one is left to wonder if it wouldn't have been better had he resorted to the old Tall Dwarfs recipe of using sound fx to distort the vocals. Don't get me wrong, this is a good album, but ... Read more »