Offspring - Rise & Fall, Rage & Grace
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Free Music Notes for Rise & Fall, Rage & Grace
Free Music Review: Rise I see. Not so much fall yet!
Hit: 5 Stars
Great CD. Love virtually every song on it. Fix you is by far the best so if u dont buy the whole CD at least grab that song off of it.Free Music Review: GOOD ALBUM OFFSPRING ROCKS!!!!
Hit: 5 Stars
WELL this a good album i am a huge fan of the band this is there newist album i just bought it if you like the band it is a must buyFree Music Review: Awesome Album
Hit: 5 Stars
The offspring has always been a great band and this album shows it! Another excellent album from the offspring.Free Music Review: I don't know much, but I know this, this CD is good.
Hit: 4 Stars
My Offspring education started with Conspiracy of One, when I was 13, I went out and bought that cd along with Blink 182's Mark Tom and Travis Show. Now, I still hold a soft spot for the Offspring.
After Conspiracy of One, I moved on to their huge previously released Americana CD. Looking back, that CD is some what boring and overrated, but I was too young to really care. Then I eventually went even farther back to Ignition and Smash, and realized that this is where the true best Offspring can be found.
I would like to review each track on Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace as follows:
1. Half-Truism: If there is one thing Offspring are known for, it is usually a solid opening track to really get the mood going. While this song doesn't really have anything out of the ordinary like a voice over or anything like that, it is one hell of a solid opener. I can already say I am impressed by Dexter's vocal range on this song. I highly recommend this track.
2. Trust In You: This song sounds very much like an Ixnay on the Hombre era track. It really reminds me of All I want or The Meaning of Life. It's rather simply musically structured and quite catchy. It almost feels out of place with the newer sound the Offspring have on other tracks, but bringing back memories of old Offspring is never a bad thing. Again, highly recommended.
3. You're Gonna Go Far, Kid: This song, which is the second single, is very catchy and has gread lyrics. You will catch yourself singing these lyrics, or at the very least tapping your foot to the beat. The only beef I have with this song is that it sounds like a mash up of some other songs. What I mean is that the opening rhythm sounds exactly like Stop by Against Me! and the part when Dexter sings: "nice work you did, you're going to go far kid" it kind of sounds like a Muse song or something along those lines. I really like this song though, and the different sounds go together very well. Again, highly recommended.
4. Hammerhead: The first single, this song seems to have a lot of different parts to it, the opening, the majority of the song, and then the middle bit all have a distinct sound. The middle part is a little silly, "Bang bang it hammers in my head" is admittedly a little childish, and I can say that from personal experience it has turned people off the song. Other than that, it takes a while to grow on you, and it might not have been the best song to market the CD with as the first single. I can just recommend this one.
5. A Lot Like Me: This song is again kind of similar to older Offspring. It starts kind of quieter and builds up to the climax at the end of the song. I'm not going to lie, I don't really follow the lyrics of this one, but with lines like "because he looks a lot like me" I'm not exactly sure what is going on. I think the highlight of this song is when Dexter chants: "Want it You got it You're sorry You bought it You're sliding Want it You got it You're sorry You bought it Can't hide it" Other than that, this song is pretty good, but not great. I recommend it though.
6. Takes Me Nowhere: This is the final song that sounds more like older Offspring. It doesn't have any super redeeming qualities but it is catchy, and worth a listen. Recommended.
7. Kristy, Are You Doing Okay?: I have to admit, I am not a fan of slower ballad type songs, especially done by a band like the Offspring. It is nice that they try something a little different but not like this. The song has to do about the singer (I say this because I doubt it is Dexter himself) realizing he wasn't there to support a Kristy when she was younger and being abused or something along those lines. It just comes off too whiny and uninspired. I really cannot recommend this song at all.
8. Nothingtown: This is the first of two songs where it seems like a case of stolen identity. This song and the upcoming Let's Hear It For Rock Bottom sound to me like they belong on a Motion City Soundtrack CD more than an Offspring CD. That is not to say they aren't good songs, but they are really poppy. They sound more like Americana songs, and I can only really recommend them to fans of that CD or Conspiracy of One.
9. Stuff Is Messed Up: Now here's what I'm talking about. This song is my favourite song on the CD by far. It's a lot of fun and who can't agree with the line "I don't know much, but I know this, **** is ****ed up!" It just fits well. This is the Offspring doing pop music with their own flavour, kind of like the song Americana or Why Don't You Get A Job. The song talks about how dumbed down culture is and how much bull**** their is going on in the world today. Dexter sarcastically sings about the media, sex, and corruption among a large list of other things. The giant list in the middle is the best part of the song. Very highly recommended, and it comes with bonus social commentary.
10. Fix You: Again with the slower ballad type songs. Although this song isn't as silly or over dramatic. It displays a nice range of Dexter's vocals as he starts our quietly and builds to "I wish I could fix you, and I wish you could fix me." This song actually works for its purpose. This is how they should do a lighter song. It kind of reminds me of She's Got Issues from Americana. It works, but like I said I'm not a huge fan of these songs. Recommended only for those who like the slower lighter songs.
11. Let's Hear It For Rock Bottom: Please see my review of Nothingtown. The one thing I have to note is that the build up to the chorus almost sounds like ska or a tiny bit of reggae. But the chorus is much more pop-rock orientated.
12. Rise and Fall: This song is a great song to wrap up the CD. It's very poppy but it works better than the previous two songs that are similar, Nothingtown and Let's Hear It... It starts and finishes strong, is very catchy throughout and where as the other two seemed out of place, this song has Offspring written all over it. From the chorus to the guitar solo in the middle. I think it is a strong track to end with, and I highly recommend it.
To finish off this review, this CD is more orientated toward the Americana and Conspiracy of One crowd, but come on, you knew you weren't going to get Smash coming into this CD. It has some songs that will remind you of the old Offspring, and it is their best album since Smash in my opinion. Remembering I still need to listen to Splinter. Maybe I will review that next. Pleas visit my blog for more reviews, cjamc.blogspot.com.
Thanks for reading.
Free Music Review: It won't "Change the World", but it'll hammer in your head
Hit: 4 Stars
Telling people I really like the Offspring isn't something that's easy to do. They have a very solid discography but starting with 1998's Americana it became peppered and eventually nearly saturated with guilty pleasures. There's not really song on 2003's Splinter that you can admit to loving without getting stripped of all "punk credentials". It was something I didn't mind, since I'm the kind of guy who's used to defending his musical taste. But when Hammerhead was released as the first single from the first proper studio effort from the Offspring in five years, something was magical about it. It was lengthy, yes, and a little pretentious in how it was drawn out, but it was a positively rockin' song. It had the adrenaline-pumping riffs, the smart lyrics and the trademark Offspring hook to give me the satisfaction of listening to any of their finest songs without having to worry about how I'm going to defend the record when talking with my music snob compatriots. For once, I was going to buy an Offspring album, crank it up, sing along with the irresistable choruses while the critics and fans backed me up on my emotions 100%, right? Right?
I would be right, if the critics weren't heartless bastards. I won't pretend there's nothing to critique here, but the resounding critical consensus is that the Offspring are "punk veterans" who should "know better" than to have a simple thesis for their album such as "[stuff] is [messed] up", before going on about what a splendid record Smash was. And I'm not denying Smash was indeed a fantastic album, but they're clearly tinting their shades a bit rose. Dexter Holland's lyrics were never anything like Bad Religion's polysyllabic political musings or NOFX's aggressive blasts against anything establishment. Dexter's lyrics are, and always have been, social in their context. "I'm not the one who made the world what it is today / I'm not the one who caused the problems started long ago" is not far removed at all from "I don't know too much / but I know this: [stuff] is [messed] up!" It's always been the same in that the songs are less about the government's specific wrongdoings and more so about ubiquitous attitudes and vices that, since they run rampant through our government, work as political songs, but apply to your boss, your friend, your significant other, your parents, etc. as well as they do the president. There's nothing condescending, preachy or all-knowing about it. More than can be said about tracks like Holiday, which I suppose these critics are using as their golden example to judge all punk albums hereafter to, but it simply boils down to "War sucks, screw Bush" with little more than artistic inflection elevating it to three minutes in length. Punk started out of aggression towards politicians, and now the credentials required to make a punk album is to practically be one? If Dexter Holland was valedictorian in high school and claims to not know too much, and Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong was a stoner high school dropout who is now claiming to be qualified to know how to fix our country's problems, someone is clearly padding their résumé.
That's not to say that Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace is the album I hoped for. The guilt abounds whether it's the kind of guilt one gets from listening to My Chemical Romance on the album's bleeding-heart opening anthem Half-Truism, ("If we don't make it alive / It's a hell of a good day to die"? Really?) the guilt one gets from any of their genre-niche novelty songs in the dance-rock "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" (which nails the pleasure center of your brain in ways Fall Out Boy's Dance, Dance only claimed to do), and the ballads. OK, chill out, there's only two of them. There's Kristy, Are You Doing OK, which despite the noble subject matter (Dex tries to make peace with letting his childhood friend's domestic abuse go unreported) chokes when Bob Rock assembles the song by the All-American Rejects playbook, except he skipped the page that says "have a breakdown or key change to keep the song from being skip-button-abusively monotonous by the last chorus". Fix You, however, has nothing to do with its Coldplay-borne namesake and resembles more a less-mechanical Chasing Cars. There's no abundance of major-key radio-ready monsters here, unlike the four albums that came before it here, though. In their place, though, are three very good up-tempo songs that sound bright and jovial without ceasing to sound like the punky Offspring that filled out the rest of the album.
I give the Offspring a hard time. And maybe I'm not so different from the critics I spent half this review blasting in that I feel the boys are capable of more than they've put forth on this album. But truthfully, there's been something missing in the five years they took off, and a summer drive with a new bangin' Offspring song on my car stereo is a pleasure I haven't indulged in for a good long while. Even if I don't have the balls to listen with the windows down. Bottom line, if you like classic rough punk Offspring but also have a soft spot in your heart for slick, hooky poppy Offspring, this record doesn't just mash the two concepts together, but satisfies both concepts in one of the most well-rounded, coherent albums the O.C. band has put together in a long time. It's a shame the critics don't share my enthusiasm. [Stuff] is [messed] up indeed.