Kami

Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace

How the fuck do they do it? Offspring brought out their new album this week and it is, for lack of more descriptive words, fucking awesome!

For a long term fan of the band, this album, the first full studio release in 5 years, totally blows “Splinter,” the bands previous full length outing, out of the water.

Green Day were another band I loved back in the day, but American Idiot proved to leave a sour taste in my mouth. It would appear with “Rise and Fall,” The Offspring are aiming for the same carrear re-launching success. However, where Green Day pulled off a commercial hit that, I thought, betrayed previous efforts sound and style, Offspring (With help of Bob Rock, surprisingly), have pulled of that big radio rock sound whilst sticking true to what you’d expect from them; Fast paced, catchy as hell pop punk.

Album opener “Half-Truism” caused me to break into fits of giggles, proudly thinking “Offspring are back!” The track opens with, initially worrying, clean guitar riffs and mellow sound, but this soon breaks down into a new classic pit-starter in their arsenal.

Trust In You, the second track, sounded frightnigly close to Offspring anthem, “Smash” I even went so far as to grab my guitar and check that, yup, those were the same chords and everything. Tad dissapointing.

“Stuff is Messed up” is an interesting track. The words “Stuff is messed up” never appear in the song, however the phrase “Shit is Fucked up” appears in the chorus, leading me to believe that this was the original name of the song. But why change it? It would make a good single, but then the whole climactic line in the song would be blanked out anyway. Strange.

Overall, apart from a few duds (Kirsty, are you doing ok? being the shining example of dud-town) the album is rock solid! I can’t wait until live dates are announced. It’s been too long guys, way too long!

Get it! Get it now!