Offspring
Americana (Columbia)

As they helped to propel punk into the mainstream limelight back in 1994 with their aptly titled multiplatinum album, Smash, everyone seemed to forget they were little more than a mildly clever punk band. Their exceedingly ordinary 1997 follow-up, Ixnay on the Hombre, stood to remind folks of the band's limitations. The Offspring's faults don't prevent Americana from being a mostly listenable, if not very exhilarating, record. The band still seems capable of only three kinds of songs and Americana has them all: driving punk anthems ("No Brakes," "Have You Ever"), offbeat rockers ("She's Got Issues," "Walla Walla") and those that desperately try to capture the sound of their 1994 breakthrough hit, "Come Out and Play" (the dreadful first single, "Pretty Fly for a White Guy"). As long as they don't stray too far from these formulas, the Offspring are fine. The problem is that they want to be more than just "fine." The album's seemingly interminable closer, "Pay the Man," works fruitlessly toward that goal, dragging some Eastern-sounding (East as in India, not Brooklyn) melodies and instrumentation pointlessly into the fray. The less ambitious "Why Don't You Get a Job?" does a little better, with touches of folk, hip-hop and even calypso augmenting typically self-deprecating SoCal sentiments. Still, the melody is blatantly swiped from the Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," reminding us once again that, when it comes to the punk vehicle Offspring, originality rides in the back seat.

By David Peisner, from Sidewalk - November 17, 1998