Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace

I have been a die-hard fan of The Offspring ever since surreptitiously listening to a copy of a copy of their 1994 hit album, Smash, with my brothers. This was music that reached me in a visceral level, tapping in to my budding teen angst and energetic anger at the establishment. To this day, I still cannot find fault with a single track off from Offspring’s first three albums; from their self-titled debut, to the raw speed and anger of Ignition, to the rich, fiery punk anthems of Smash. I even shrugged the handful of less-than-stellar tracks off as growing pains after listening to Ixnay on the Hombre, because the band was making some deeply personal and powerful music such as Gone Away, which remains one of the most visceral tracks released by The Offspring to this day. Then Americana was released and I found the music that I loved hidden behind a glossy veneer of MTV over-production and watered-down lyrics. Even then I still found a few songs therein that, mostly the epic songs of disillusionment with the American dream such as Change the World, struck enough of a chord to keep my interest. I was rewarded with Conspiracy of One, another over-produced collection of music video fodder, but the energy was back with a vengeance in the title song as well as about half of the albums tracks. Offspring’s next album caught me by surprise, I was out of the music news loop and happened to catch Splinter just as it was about to be released. I was cautious because the band had replaced their original drummer, marking the first personnel change in the band’s history. Splinter was a true joy, harkening back to the good old days of Offspring, the lyrics were insightful, the tunes original, and the energy was high. Gone were the slick production values that made the last few albums so unbearable. There were still a couple throw-away tracks on the album, but by and large Splinter gave one clear message: The Offspring are back!

Which brings us to The Offspring’s latest release, obtusely titled Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace. This album also caught me by surprise, and I picked it up just as it was being released, knowing nothing about it whatsoever. I noticed that the band had, once again, changed drummers, but what was even more notable was that they hadn’t nailed down a concrete replacement by the albums release date so no drummer is credited as a member of the band. When I received the CD, I did a double-take, the cover art looked suspiciously like an AFI album, with trepidation in my heart, I dropped the disc into my stereo. Unfortunately, where AFI was able to shine, adapting their sound to their changing musical tastes, The Offspring have failed miserably. I can say, without hesitation, that Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace is the single worst album ever released by The Offspring. There is not one redeemable track on the disc, and worse than that, when it seems as though a song might start going in the right direction, the rug is pulled out from underneath you and you land firmly in an unimaginative, bland wilderness where the over-produced sound The Offspring has toyed with in the past is clung to religiously by the grey denizens that inhabit this musical wasteland. The lyrics range from ham-fisted political statements to embarrassingly repetitive phrases that seem like unfinished vocal noodling in a high-schooler’s diary. I wish I could say there is even one redeemable track on this album, but I cannot.

Dexter Holland needs to seriously take a look at what The Offspring stands for before releasing another highly-polished turd like this album down the sewer of modern mainstream music. Needless to say, 2008 doesn’t look much more promising that 2007 was for music, but I will still hold out hope that punk is not dead.