Circle Jerks
Golden Shower of Hits

THE REVIEW

The Circle Jerks belong to that circle of punk bands whose careers are overshadowed by their debut album. Cursed by a debut so iconic and perfect, these bands will never again not only reach its heights, but not even come close. Think of the Adolescents, Bad Brains, our own Raw Power. All bands that had respectable careers, but always fell short compared to the masterpiece they birthed at the first attempt. The Jerks, after the seminal "Group Sex," released albums for another fifteen years, increasingly less enjoyable, increasingly forgettable, increasingly merciless compared to those incredible fifteen minutes that alone are worth entire discographies. "Golden Shower Of Hits," dated 1983, is the last noteworthy album, as well as the last of the original lineup.

This third work by Morris and company continues the path taken in the previous "Wild In The Streets": songs that are still thrilling but less fast, more paced, of longer duration compared to the incandescent fragments of the debut. The only old-school hardcore shard is the opening In Your Eyes, after which it transitions to a gritty and captivating punk rock in the faster tracks and catchy and somewhat slick in the more paced tracks, demonstrating the band's growing interest in power pop sounds, increasingly dominant in later albums. However, there aren't many memorable tracks: we have When The Shit Hits The Fan and Coup d'Etat, which ended up on the "Repo Man" soundtrack the following year and remained in concert setlists; Parade Of The Horribles, Product Of My Environment, and Red Blanket Room, essential and melodic as in the best Californian tradition, confirm that the Circle Jerks perform best with streetwise and rebellious punk. When they falter, however, it's in the longer tracks: Bad Words sounds like a poor imitation of a discarded track from the Stooges' "Fun House," Under The Gun could have been saved if it were half as long, and Rats Of Reality verges on boredom. Surprisingly, the final title track, a medley of covers of romantic songs, forms a sort of pop punk operetta oscillating between amusing and embarrassing.

In essence, it's an album certainly not indispensable, but nevertheless enjoyable to listen to: recommended for completists of Californian punk.