With this album, Offspring have done something most bands say
they try to do but fail miserably at, and that is looking back at their early
albums and making songs that sound like those songs. Just listen to Our Lady Peace’s Clumsy and then their latest album Curve and you’ll discover how when bands usually set out to find
their early sound, they just can’t. The
Offspring, however, succeed flawlessly with most tracks off of this album,
while still including some mid-career Offspring influence in other tracks. Most
of this album sounds like it could have been written for the bands second
album, 1992’s Ignition.
That brings us to the first track off of the album, The Future Is Now; a typical Offspring
fast paced maybe punk/maybe rock song (depends on who you ask). The lyrics,
just like so many lyrics off of the album, show a superb amount of maturity in Bryan “Dexter” Holland’s life (it
should also be noted that his voice, as per usual, sounds excellent). The best
part of the song, which would never have been heard in the early days, is the
bridge, which has an almost apocalyptic piano playing in the background. The
song immediately leads in to the second track, Secrets From the Underground, which is very similar to the previous
track in many ways, except it’s maybe a little bit faster. Both tracks are excellent
openers, probably the best opening tracks off of any Offspring album. The other
song off of the album that has similar descriptions is Turning Into You, though this track is slightly heavier.
If any guitar player has ever tried to play Offspring songs,
they’ve probably realized that lead guitarist Noodles likes to recycle previously used riffs, usually by successfully
incorporating them in to a different styled song. In this case, the song Hurting As One starts off with a riff
that should sound very familiar to long time Offspring fans, a riff that sounds
very similar to that of which Noodles played during the bridge of the huge 1997
hit Gone Away, only that song was a
very serious, heartfelt almost ballad. This track is probably the second
fastest paced song off of the album. It seems Noodles wanted to test out the riff
on a faster song. The result is an excellent one and provides a track that the
band opened many of their live sets with in supporting this album.
A major improvement in the bands maturity over the past two
albums is the lack of silly songs. Between Ixnay
on the Hombre and 2003’s Splinter,
the band released a number of rather silly songs to maintain a free-feeling on
their albums. Some of these songs were to satirize modern hits, such as 1998’s Pretty Fly (For A White Guy), and some
were just to stand out and maintain a very punky “I’ll do what I want to do”
message, such as 2003’a Worst Hangover
Ever. This album does have only two rather silly songs (which is an improvement
from 2000’s Conspiracy of One and
2003’s Splinter, both having four
songs each of this nature). On this album, the tracks Cruising California (Bumpin’ In My Trunk) and OC Guns fall under this category. The former being of the satirical
nature of having fun with songs by current popular artists such as Katy Perry, the latter being
practically a rap song sung mostly in Spanish. There is a third track on the
album, I Wanna Secret Family (With You)
that has some humorous lyrics, but in this song it’s delivered in a more hard
rock tone, putting aggression where the humour would otherwise be.
To further my previous example that most of these songs could
have been written back when the band made Ignition,
the band provided a treat for fans of that album in the form of re-recording the
best track off of Ignition, Dirty Magic.
This time around the track has a much more full sound, with a lot more guitars,
harmonized and slightly re-worked vocals, as well as a bit of a slower tempo.
Frankly the original version of the song is better, but it is terrific seeing
the band encourage an era they don’t seem to acknowledge nearly enough.
The album ends off on two strong points; first being the
track Dividing By Zero, which sounds
in every way like it could have been off of the bands forgotten 1989 Self-Titled Debut, specifically with its
intro, which sounds like their track Tehran.
It is the fastest paced song off of the album, and the most “punk” the band has
sounded since their 1994 breakthrough Smash.
The albums last track, Slim Pickens Does
The Right Thing And Rides The Bomb To Hell, is the best off of the album,
based on speaking to many fans of the band and the album, and closes off one
of, if not the best work by The
Offspring.
It’s hard to say if this would be a good album for first time
listeners to pick up. It’s hard to pin point any album because the band frankly
has never really released the same album twice. That note aside, the band has
always hidden their more serious sounding songs in between songs that attempt
to be radio-friendly. (I’d strongly recommend 1997’s Amazed or 2003’s Race
Against Myself, both two of the bands greatest and strongest songs, yet two
of the most forgotten) This album, for once, is made up of mostly songs of a
strong nature, and makes for one of the best Offspring albums to be listened to
from beginning to end. There may always be a debate on whether the band is “punk”
or just “rock”, but what matters is that they will always be The Offspring.
ALBUM HIGHLIGHT
FINAL RATING
9 (Out of 10)
Track List:
1.
|
"The Future Is Now"
|
4:08
|
2.
|
"Secrets from the Underground"
|
3:10
|
3.
|
"Days Go By"
|
4:02
|
4.
|
"Turning Into You"
|
3:42
|
5.
|
"Hurting as One"
|
2:50
|
6.
|
"Cruising California (Bumpin' in My Trunk)"
|
3:31
|
7.
|
"All I Have Left Is You"
|
5:19
|
8.
|
"OC Guns"
|
4:08
|
9.
|
"Dirty Magic"
|
4:00
|
10.
|
"I Wanna Secret Family (With You)"
|
3:02
|
11.
|
"Dividing by Zero"
|
2:22
|
12.
|
"Slim Pickens Does the Right Thing and Rides the Bomb
to Hell"
|
2:36
|
No comments:
Post a Comment