Adolescents weren't exactly sludge, but when you listen to the slower, darker parts of songs like "Wrecking Crew" and "Democracy," you can hear how Adolescents helped bridge the gap between early hardcore and an album like My War, and influenced generation after generation of goth and metal-infused punk bands in the process. Even the snotty songs on this album have a darkness that was a little out of step with the usual SoCal hardcore/skate punk stuff. Tony Cadena's sneer was as bratty as it was menacing, and even the soaring, proto-pop-punk chorus of "Amoeba" had a devilish undertone. On the other end of the spectrum, drummer Casey Royer and late bassist Steve Soto's peppy, surfy rhythm section made for a danceable contrast to all the darkness.

Songs like "Amoeba" and "L.A. Girl" are the crowdpleasers, but the album's centerpiece -- the song that really puts it over the edge -- is "Kids of the Black Hole." This one was written by guitarist Rikk Agnew, who might've had the most contentious relationship with the rest of the group and was the first to leave, and you can hear how a song like this helped sew the seeds for the music that Rikk would write on Christian Death's pioneering deathrock classic Only Theatre of Pain the following year. It's a five-and-a-half minute song -- double or even triple the length of every other track on the album -- and it finds Adolescents going on a real musical journey, from its haunting slow-paced intro to its fast-paced punk chorus to its hypnotic instrumental bridge. The song practically invented post-hardcore (move over, Zen Arcade), and its dark, experimental twist on punk rivaled some of what Sonic Youth was doing in the mid '80s. "'Kids of the Black Hole' was like Quadrophenia for us," Steve Soto said in 2014. Making it fit seamlessly within a mostly-whiplash-inducing punk record in the year 1981 was no small feat.

As trail-blazing as the album is, it still feels like a no-frills punk record. Half the band may have wanted to be Black Sabbath, but the half that was trying to be "middle-class punk" won out when it came to the production (which was handled by Mike Patton of the band Middle Class [not that Mike Patton] and also included engineering/mixing by Thom Wilson, who went on to work with Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion, Social Distortion, The Vandals, TSOL, and eventually produced The Offspring's world-conquering Smash). Adolescents' debut sounds like a raw, tinny, early punk record in the best possible way. It's so unshowy that you almost miss how innovative the songs are.

Shortly after Adolescents' release, Rikk left for Christian Death and a new three-song EP was recorded without him. By the time the EP was released in late 1981, the band had already called it quits. Casey Royer went on to front the also-awesome D.I., Steve Soto and Frank Agnew joined Legal Weapon for their oft-overlooked 1982 classic Death of Innocence, and Tony ended up fronting the short-lived band The Abandoned. Adolescents' debut was never given a proper tour, and by the time Adolescents reunited with a slightly different lineup and released their 1987 sophomore album Brats in Battalions, punk and hardcore were in a very different place. (There's plenty of cool stuff on that album though, but Casey's distinctive style is missed.) One more album followed and then they broke up again in 1989, until they finally reunited over 20 years later; they remain active today with Tony as the only original member. They always seemed to be plagued by personal and creative differences and were never able to achieve the longevities or evolutions that some of their peers did, but that hardly mattered when their debut already felt like a greatest hits. It's stuffed with a handful of the most iconic songs of hardcore's first wave, and it's entirely void of filler. 40 years later, it's still one of a kind.