Offspring Month: Days Go By (2012)

"Part of why I chose 'Days Go By' as the single and the title of the album is because it really kind of shows – not only with me – that the world has been through a shitty few years and it's been really tough on a lot of people," Holland says. "People have really gotten hurt and, at the end of the day, no one's gonna pick you up. You've gotta pick yourself up and figure out how to move on. So I guess acknowledging that it's been tough, but also having a message of hope, is what I really wanted people to take away from this record." [rs]

The Offspring - Days Go By (2012) - singles marked with red

video links provided where available

• The Future Is Now  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  - Pretty good start with some technophobe angst, served in a rocking way, although I could do without those autotuned-to-hell whoas and the Linkin Park-ish breakdown. The piano's just an overkill, and it's cut really short at the worst place, after Dexter sings only two lines - it leaves you with a feel of an aborted mission, like if there was more to come, but they changed their mind about it during the final mixing.
• Secrets from the Underground  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  - Now that's why we're all here. Fast, punky, hard-hitting rock tune, but it has a nice melody, great hooks, whoas, a hair-raising solo, and a breakdown that fits there rather nicely. Offspring to the roots, and the goose bumps are back for the god damn first time since The Noose. Nice job.
• Days Go By  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  - mv - OHMYGOSH, FOO FIGHTERS RIP-OFF!!!!111 And what shocking news it was two whole years ago. Hardly any originality or anything specially offspringish in it - besides Times Like These, it has elements of The Cult's She Sells Sanctuary, and also Ron Emory's I'm Not Alone, a song on which Dex did some back-vocals in 2010 -, still, it's a nice little tune, catchy enough and the lyrics kinda grew on me. It's good to have a song in which we are not limited to dream about those brighter days. This time we are promised that a time will come when we can live them through.
• Turning Into You  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  -Meh, I don't know. This one sounds like every other pop-rock/emo/metal hit you hear on the radio nowadays, and especially like Rise Against's Ready To Fall, but that's not my main problem with it. Although the chorus is catchy as hell, the verses are basically endless "most clichéd sad emo phrases" listings, and even Dexter sings like he was bored out of his mind by them, rendering the overall picture kinda bland. Please guys, don't make this a single.
• Hurting as One  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  - Modern, but very smashy. There's almost a full verse in which Dex's voice seems untouched and the whoas in the chorus create a similar sound to Something to Believe In. Then again, the intro and the breakdown's oooooohs are like something straight out of RAFRAG. Basically it's a neat hybrid of different Offspring eras.
• Cruising California (Bumpin' In My Trunk)  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪   - ... ... you know, the real sad thing is, with minimum effort they could actually make a really enjoyable, fun, silly pop track, straight or sarcastic, without losing much of their offspringero touch. CC, on the other hand, sounds like a dog turd's agony cries, while it's being squashed to death by Katy Perry's pink heels. This song, I don't like it. Anotha!
• All I Have Left Is You  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  - As much as it hurts to acknowledge it, nowadays ballads like this have become something to expect on an Offspring record. This one starts out rather well, actually, I like the beat, Dex's voice is really nice, so is the guitar work in the first minute and a half. From that point on it kinda losts it though, and with a running time of 5:18 (I think this is their second longest song after Pay The Man), it is destined to get freakin' boring.
• O.C. Guns  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  -  Wow, this one's a pleasant surprise. Probably a tribute to Guns of Brixton by The Clash (a song they have covered some time ago), it's a mariachi-reggae hybrid tune, put onto an old-school hip-hop beat. Sounds like something you might hear from Gorillaz, but it also has an Americana-feel to it. At the same time funny and dark lyrics, extensive tongue-in-cheek Spanish swearing, as many Mexico sound-clichés as you can imagine, some scratch, and those funny, stupid synth sounds - it's the kind of song you wouldn't expect from this band, but it still remains surprisingly offspringish, and it works really well. It's chilling, cool, gets you into the mood for a few shots of tiki-tiki-tiki-tiki-tequila and a bottle of Gringo Bandito, I guess. Why, oh why couldn't they release this as a single instead of Cruisin' Crapfest? Also, remember when I wrote that Come Out and Play could be a reference to a movie called The Warriors? Well, guess which flick's sound effect did they sample for the intro here.
• Dirty Magic  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  - It's pretty funny how some reviewers are calling the chorus a complete rip-off or re-use of the verses from Have You Ever, not realizing that Dirty Magic was first released in 1992, six years prior to Americana. Anyway, with this track they polished a gem into a nuclear bomb. The same good old melody, pumped up with a third guitar and some background vocals in the chorus, a tad slower, but more powerful than the original Ignition version. Even though I like the old one slightly better, it's close.
• I Wanna Secret Family (With You)  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  - (What's up with these You titles in the last two albums, anyway? They should have included Defy You as a bonus track.) And of course we can't get away without some American Idiot moments. Nothing really wrong with it though, a fun joke song, sounds like The Offspring enough, and the solo is really sweet, but as a whole, it was built on the most common clichés. From Sum 41's Motivation to Green Day's She's a Rebel, you've heard these riffs in a thousand pop-punk songs before. I guess you gotta have a filler before releasing the heavy weapons, huh?
• Dividing By Zero  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  - Holy Mother of Goddamn Fuck, yeah! This one and Slim Pickens are capital OFFSPRING at their finest. Heavy, fast, aggressive, catchy as fuck, adrenaline-pumping melody and lyrics. It rocks your head with a series of bangs, and guess what, the first time since Americana there's some Eastern stuff! In fact, the intro comes off a bit like Tehran on crack, and that solo - no showstopper over-dramatized breakdown this time - sounds like something straight out of Me and My Old Lady or Pay The Man. Pure awesomeness and it doesn't stops where the song does, because before you could even blink once or pick up your jaw from the floor...
• Slim Pickens Does the Right Thing and Rides the Bomb to Hell  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  ♪  With /0 these two feel like one übersong, the finest section of the album. The crazy black sheep twins. Slim Pickens is the kind of thing I thought I'd never hear from this band again, a nihilistic, let's watch things burn and drink-type of skate punk song about a coming apocalypse. Could have been a Bad Religion or a Pennywise song, too. Fast, hard, funny, dark, sweet. This is an Offspring album closer, easily the best one since Americana. More of stuff like this in the future, pretty please?

Other stuff:

• A live The Kids Aren't Alright bonus track is rumored to appear on the Japanese version.

Cruising California (with its painful music video) and some of those Rise Against "influences" aside, I've found myself surprisingly pleased with this record. The production quality is top-notch this time, you can find plenty of great lyrics, and some of the songs really feel like a throwback to their earlier days.

Their experimenting departures from the classic offstyle turned out well for the most part, at least for me - judging from the opinions and reviews I've come across so far, I'm supposed to feel the same California-hatred towards O.C. Guns, but I simply can't help loving that one -, and the tracklist order is a huge improvement over Splinter and RAFRAG. (Well, that dreaded track 6 is missing from my playlist, with Secret Family in its place, so the three heavyweights at the end don't get interrupted by a funny one.)

'spring month is over now, but 2012 is a good year to be a fan. While the new record has some awesome tracks, we shouldn't forget about how their live performances and Dexter's singing is getting better lately... to top it all up, they surprised us with an Ignition tour. Good stuff. 

The men might not be the young SoCal anarchist kids they were during those Manic Subsidal years, but their hearts are still at the most rightfully wrong places and their music is still rocking, meaningful and relevant, arguably at the top of this mutated genre.

For the most part, anyway. You can bet your bumping trunk we'll hear about them in upcoming posts.