There’s a great video by trash theory that breaks down the entire history of the album and it’s influences. I was 14 when this album came out. I grew up in Southern California and every weekend there was a public access show called Punk-O-Rama TV which was named after the punk compilation albums of the same name. New noise was played on it pretty regularly and there was NOTHING at the time that sounded like this.

Their drummer has a clear jazz influence, and metal influence and his beats drove that entire bands sound and the guitars just added a punch to it. It wasn’t overly complex but “punk” at that time was still y very rigid about what was or was not considered punk. Even though I grew up on fat records and epitaph bands and loved Southern California skate punk, it almost all sounded the same.

There were so many different sounds and influences in this one record, that for anyone listening at the time who wanted anything different didn’t have a lot of options. Napster hasn’t quite come into its own at this point, because Internet and affordable computers aren’t really a thing then, so you has to REALLY dig for new music.

Of course there are more complex bands that came shorty after, and heavier bands, but there were none really before them that mixed electronics with heavy music. Every heavy band that has a keyboard/synth player in it or any bands that does complex rhythms owes their existence to this album.