Artist: The Offspring
Title: Let The Bad Times Roll
Genre: Punk / Rock
Release Date: 16th April 2021
Label: Concord Records / Universal Music
Album Review
“If they only had made an EP with only half the songs, it would have been a blast…” I thought, when I started writing the review about ‘Let The Bad Times Roll’, an album that took THE OFFSPRING nine years to finish. Somehow, I felt let down by these Punk Rock veterans and I somehow didn’t get rid of the idea, that they didn’t have enough material to fill a whole album and so they used instrumental pieces and half-hearted songs to fill it.
Let’s start from the beginning that was really promising. ‘This Is Not Utopia’ is straight forward and lyricwise with a nice touch of rebellion and criticism of things that are going on at the moment and the chorus part might be on your mind for a while. The title song follows suit and is not bad, with some nice guitar hooks. ‘Behind Your Walls’ had an interesting intro-part with nearly no audible instruments so the whole focus is on the vocals until a very melodic melody will remind you of THE OFFSPRINGS positive attitude.
If you like Feelgood-Rock, synths and lots of stuff in the background, ‘Coming For You’ is a song you might like, it was released as a single in 2016 already and was obviously designed to get radio play on the popular main radio stations. Same goes for ‘Breaking These Bones’ that might have turned as a nice and edgy song for the drums and bass lines are really good and pushing, but it seems that star-producer Bob Rock had the goal to make songs that will get lots of radio-play.
Grieg’s ‘The Hall of the Mountain King’ has been covered by an endless number of bands and it seems that THE OFFSPRING wanted to be on this list, too. To make it short, this instrumental cover sounds like a filler and the best idea is, to use the skip-button. ‘The Opioid Diaries’ has a lot or power and reminds you of the good old THE OFFSPRING days as well as ‘Hassan Chop’ and make you wish for more songs of the band signature attitude.
These days ‘Gone Away’ is best known as a very successful song by Five Finger Death Punch, but THE OFFSPRING decided to rerelease a song from ‘IXNAY On The Hombres’ times and made it into a song that drips of strings and piano. The next ballad (or “filler” if you will say so) follows suit. We are talking ‘Lullaby’ with lyrics that consists of two endless repeating lyric lines and then the album is over.
THE OFFSPRING should had remained in silence until they had written enough decent songs for an album that is worth being called an album. The lyrics are not bad, but the music supports the content in no way. Maybe fans who want a complete collection of the band’s releases will buy it and use the skip button various times while listening through the album but it will not win over the band new fans for sure.
Tracklist
01. This Is Not Utopia
02. Let The Bad Times Roll
03. Behind Your Walls
04. Army of One
05. Breaking These Bones
06. Coming For You
07. We Never Have Sex Anymore
08. The Hall of the Mountain King
09. The Opioid Diaries
10. Hassan Chop
11. Gone Away
12. Lullaby
Line-up
Dexter Holland – Vocals, Guitar
Noodles – Guitar
Greg K - Bass
Pete Parada – Drums
Website
https://www.offspring.com/
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 5
Sound: 5
Total: 5 / 10
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