“After we made Subterranean Jungle, I was asked to leave the band,” Marky told Michael Dawson of Modern Drummer. “I wasn’t into drugs, but I was a periodic drinker.” That period must’ve been geologic; how else can you explain the drum production? As a slavish imitation of electronic pads, it’s phenomenal; as punk rock backbeat, it’s puzzling. The so-wet-it’s-scuba-qualified, ultra-low tuning is courtesy of Richie Cordell, songwriter for Tommy James and the legendary bubblegum label Super K Productions. The Ramones covered “Indian Giver,” a song Cordell co-write for the 1910 Fruitgum Company, during these sessions, but three non-originals was enough for one record. If you’re not Three Dog Night, three covers is a lot for a rock ‘n’ roll act, and the Ramones frontloaded the record with two of ‘em. “Little Bit O’ Soul” is a triumph of midrange, a clenched sphincter of quasi-gated riffage and scrapyard cowbell. Joey sounds really happy. “I Need Your Love” barely counts as a cover, as the original act (power-poppers the Boyfriends) never recorded it; the backing vocals positively swoon. The cymbals still lash like a thin leather strap, though.

Subterranean Jungle was held as a return to roots for the Ramones; the implication, I guess, is that nothing sounded like “Danny Says.” The energy’s here, but the tunes aren’t. The self-references continue though: Joey singing “but they took her away,” “Somebody Like Me” copping the “Blitzkrieg” chords. Johnny Ramone steps to the page with “Psycho Therapy,” a throwback weer-all-crazee number that gives his singer free rein to ping sardonically across his range. The slowest cut, “My-My Kind Of A Girl,” is Joey’s, and it builds to a roar, like a garage band covering the Ronettes. But a garage band covering the Chambers Brothers? It’s particularly sad that Marky, who cut his teeth as a teenage prog rocker, didn’t get to flex across the breakdown in “Time Has Come Today,” but drumming duties were handed to Billy Rogers of the Heartbreakers. “My soul has become… psy-ka-dell-a-sized!” Joey giggles, a fittingly tasteless end for the first four-minute song in their catalog.

The record’s charm lies in its sonic consistency. While it didn’t outpace hardcore, Johnny got his wish for a harder sound, and Joey and Dee Dee’s pop sensibilities — to say nothing of the assistance provided by Walter Lure on second guitar — kept things from turning into a Dokken record. Dee Dee’s “Outsider” is the LP’s token all-timer, giving Joey a bone-deep melody to drill into. Joey’s timbre is a marvel of grain and grit, and Dee Dee handles the bridge (“All messed up, hey everyone/I’ve already had all my fun/More troubles are gonna come/I’ve already had all my fun”) with aplomb and a little bit of twang. The boys did their best to look tuff for the album cover, glowering on a graffiti’d-up subway car. Poor Marky peers from a window, banished from everyone else. Joey got to be a Ramone and an alcoholic; Marky lost one designation after this record, and (wonderfully) ditched the second in time. When it came time to film the requisite music videos, Richie Ramone was there to man the kit.