The Offspring
Ixnay On The Hombre Review

In pure IQ-test terms, singer Dexter Holland is just inches away from his microbiology Ph.D., for Christ’s sake the Offspring might rank as one of rock's smartest bands ever. Add the fact that their 1994 album, Smash, was also an unpredictably mega platinum indie-punk success story, and you've got the potential for a long-standing career. But in the three years since then, the stakes have been raised: A number of energetic ensembles (Rancid, Local H, Sublime) have made records whose riff rock and/or reggae make all but Smash's biggest hits seem like a dime-a-dozen hardcore hack work by comparison. to keep up, The Offspring would need to totally abandon the comfy mosh-club confines in which they came of age for the Middle American car-radio format that embraced the wit and wisdom of "Come Out and Play" and "Self Esteem." Wether the band was smart or brave enough to risk punk fans' self-righteousness wrath remained to be seen.

Of course, most purists thought these guys sold out the first time they showed up on MTV and sixth-graders started buying their discs. Last year, the Offspring gave integrity-obsessed punks even more to complain about by leaving the independent label Epitaph for the mega corporation Sony. So, not surprisingly, as their fourth album, Ixnay on the Hombre, opens, we find the foursome proclaiming themselves "real" in a smarmy spoken-word "Disclaimer" from veteran blowhard Jello Biafra. The band then gets obligatory "realness" out of the way with two of the collection’s more tantrum like numbers, "The Meaning of Life" and "Mota."

From there, though, the album is gratifyingly unstraight-jacketed by slam-dance; the band switches from defensively covering its ass to definitely covering hard-rock bases. Ixnay's smoking chords, chunky bottom, suprising mode shifts and melodic good humour suggest Van Halen's late-70's California more than Black flag's.

"Gone Away" and "Amazed" communicate grunge-type pessimism with a rare clarity and gravity. That said, the album's more melodramatic material has its dry spots. Ixnay's true heart comes from less blatantly serious semi-novelties, where Dexter Holland's hefty high registers keeps the group's eccentric beats light on their feet; whenever his gang harmonises behind him, the music turns positively anthemic. "Don't pick it up" -about why you shouldn't pick up transvestites, dog turds or stupid and contagious diseases- starts out with an capella ba-baa-BAA out of the "At the Hop." Then it evolves into an expert ska rhythm, whereupon Holland hilariously resurrects Johnny Rotten's slimy staccato form "Problems."

Over the Van Halen-ish chuckka-chuckka of "I Choose" and the funky bass of "Me and My Old Lady," Holland air-drives into a pinched Perry Falseto. On the latter track, his voice dances with sex-revelling mirth around the same sort of Saharan surf guitars that hooked "Come Out and Play" - obviously, the Offspring aren't afraid to refer back to their own best work. Likewise, the barrio-weed ode "Mota" has its title shouted out periodically in a Hispanic accent not unlike "Come Out's" indelible "You Gotta Keep 'em separated!" 3 years back.

At the least, Ixnay erases any doubts that the Offspring are less than complex thinkers or versatile players. If "Come Out and Play," with its feuding among high-school factions, was "Jet Song" from West Side Story, Ixnay's wise "Way down the Line" is "Gee, Officer Krupke!" Which is to say, it rejoices in parents passing down personal delinquencies to their real-life offspring. "An angry man gets drunk and beats his kid, same old way his drunken father did" -then a girl named Shannon is unmarried and pregnant like her own mom was at 17, and the cycles just repeat themselves generation after generation. It's what-comes-around-goes-around determinism chasing a Stones-like guitar bounce, with a freebie reggae break at the end -not quit "Love Child" by the Supremes, but it sure beats "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin. Maybe Dexter should get his Ph.D. in sociology.

3 1/2 stars out of 5

From Rolling Stone magazine - February 6, 1997