Confession time. We were all geared up to torch this record with a rant about how America completely missed the point of punk rock, turning it into a grindingly worthy and crushingly conservative megabucks industry centred around uptight macho dullards like Rollins and Albini.
Then we heard the record and, bugger, it’s a serviceable slab of inoffensive melodi-core with a guitar line naggingly reminiscent of [a]Magazine[/a]’s edgy noo
wave landmark ‘Shot By Both Sides’. Bastards! In fact, The Offspring are pretty spry for old guys. And, hey, at least they’re not Green Day.
Stephen Dalton