

After spending a few years successfully experimenting with more elaborate, pop-oriented sounds, the Ramones gleefully return to their punk roots here, clearly relishing the thrashing guitars and droning vocals of “Mama’s Boy” and the biting, almost-ballad swelling of drums and harmony on “I’m Not Afraid of Life.” This album also has the band’s first instrumental: “Durango 95,” a cacophony of riffs that gets in and out in just under a minute.