The title of this 16-song collection, -- clocking in, as true short-sharp-blasts of should, at just under a half-hour -- might lead you to believe it's less focused on a certain time frame than it really is. Although it was recorded between 1980 and 1986, all but three of the tracks were done between March 1980 and July 1980. In essence, then, it's like hearing an unreleased debut album with three bonus tracks, as all of the 1980 recordings predate their actual 1981 self-titled debut (also referred to among the faithful as "the blue album"). Seven of the songs on the 1980 demos (which include two versions of ) would be redone for , so as you'd expect, they're very much in the early Southern Californian style of the official album. Although the speed and energy jumps off the VU meter, fans can't get too over the moon, as the fidelity is often pretty mediocre. True, that's not something that matters to listeners as much as it does to followers of many other styles of music. But be warned that, although this will certainly be of interest to devotees, the sound is quite substandard on about half of this material, the vocals suffering the most. The first four tracks, in fact, were recorded in 's garage in March 1980 on cassette. Though they brim with prototypical teenage rebellion, even the more forgiving aficionados might find the result a significant loss, since none of these four songs were redone for . Things improve a lot on the four May 1980 numbers done at -- and you can hear the band's attack getting fuller and more metallic -- but the five July 1980 cuts, recorded at in Fullerton, are pretty muddy. (As the liner notes admit, the original tapes for recordings were lost, and what you hear on this CD was "mastered from nth generation collector tapes.") Again the sonic mush is a loss for serious worshipers, as among material are versions of and as well as the simplistic-to-the-point-of-moronic Rounding out this archival release are the previously unreleased 1981 track the last to be recorded by the early-'80s , and later (as done by ) a highlight of the . There are also two efforts from 1986, when the group reunited after a gap of about five years. ~ Richie Unterberger