Originally Posted by TheBig3 (Post 2170652)

The Offspring, to me, has always been a band that understood that if you give the major label a single or two for commercial appeal, you can use the other tracks to write whatever you want. And throughout their career, pop-friendly cringe-inducing tracks like "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" or "Original Prankster" feel more like "are we good here" deals cut with suits, and hid a lot of their better tracks.

So when I hear tracks like "we never have sex anymore" with its wtf-induing pseudo-swing rhythm, I'm willing to forgive and press skip. But there's clearly a lot of experimentation going on this album that makes me think it might be best to proceed with caution. For decades now, a hallmark of The Offspring has been Dexter Hollands eternally youthful vocals, which are MIA on This is not Utopia, a 1:00 Offspring-ified version of Hall of the Mountain King (why?), and a stripped-down piano version of their song Gone Away, a song from 1997's Ixnay on the Hombre

There are some highlights. There are more traditional Offspring style tracks here such as The Opiod Diaries, Army of One, and Hassan Chop. Even one of the experiments - Coming For You - the 2015 Gary Glitter repossession that turns out to be an improvement on the original and one of the better arena rock tracks since Fall Out Boys last venture into Imagine Dragons territory.

All in all, it's a fine album. It's not going to blow your mind or end up in the Top 3 Offspring albums of all time, but like many bands entering their 4th decade of music production, it's all just throwing Noodles at the wall and seeing what sticks. And to that end, one or two of these tracks might make it into the lineup on the next tour.

I'd give the album a 2 out of 5. 1 star because a few of these songs aren't bad. And another because it didn't punch my mother.

Tracks worth trying:
Hassan Chop
Army of One
Coming for You

Originally Posted by Oleg Vostyakov (Post 2192693)

For me the are downed pilots. I think time of theirs music has gone. If they wanted to be modern they needed to modernize their music and that's all.

Originally Posted by TheBig3 (Post 2192782)

Yeah I don't know. This took awhile, they booted their bassist, and it sounds like there were label problems.

IMO you sometimes need to issue a **** album to move passed it. They're also an older band. I don't expect them to be putting out groundbreaking ****.