The Offspring - Ixnay on the Hombre

Every generation of high schoolers needs a band to express the angst and agony specific to 14-to-18-year-olds. At present, that band is the Offspring. Their songs are aimed squarely at a younger crowd, from "The Meaning of Life" to "Leave It Behind" to "I Choose," and especially "All I Want" and "Change the World". Their occasionally insightful lyrics are anything but obscure, which is actually refreshing; there's real pain behind "Gone Away," and "Way Down the Line" taps into the common fear among the younger crowd of turning out just like our parents. Musically, the Offspring are hardly complex, but then complexity isn't a requirement. This is music to play at full volume, bang your head to, and annoy your neighbors. Cool. -- Genevieve Williams Amazon.com essential recording

Straightforward and honest

The only thing to say about this album is that you have to listen to it to judge it. It is honest rock and straightforward in what it wants to be, just fun music to listen to. No pretense to be political correct and nowhere complicated musical compositions, but somehow you can hear the boys enjoying themselves. So should we, life is not so complicated after all. February 29, 2008

The big budget follow up to the breakthrough album

After blowing the doors off so much of the opposition with their incisive Smash album Offspring hit the racks with this '97 offering to the strains of a big budget in terms of promotion. Yet the band sound quite unchanged by their success to their credit and while the production of Dave Jerden, who also did the later Americana album, is qutie smooth and nice it doesn't sound overly lush - I mean this isn't an '07 power metal album from Germany!

The album kicks off with an amusing appeal-to-the-teenagers spoken word intro track that sets the musical and intellectual tone of the album and as such is one of the best intro tracks I've heard. The album then gets cracking with track after track of hard rock infused/infected with pop punk sensibilities and time signatures and much of the album comprises songs with very bouncy delivery to ensure that as few people as possible realise they're listening to a hard rock band (a dirty word/phrase circa `97).

Ixnay on the Hombre is highly successful in fleshing out further the Offspring sound, the band utlising the album to give themselves more options when it came time to choose the set list on their ever increasing headlining tours. My personal favourites here would be Mota which really does scoot along to a sort of stop start rhythm and .... Well that's perhaps my only really favourite tune here. Much of this album just didn't resonate with me and it just came across as something you'd only really love if you really loved the band. If you just thought there were some great numbers on Smash and so bought their next album you'd probably not be thrilled with this as the numbers aren't as biting, the introspection isn't so spot on and tends to sound a bit try hard. That could be a wrong read on my part but this album seems very middling despite the fact you can feel the energy bristling out of the tunes, which is why I've given an album with so little connectivity to it's audience three stars anyway, just to reward the obvious effort that went into creating it. February 1, 2008

The last great album from the Offspring

It was pretty steep to top "Smash", but the Offspring still managed to pump out an excellent album with "Ixnay on the Hombre"; the last great album to come from the band. "The Meaning of Life", "Leave It Behind", and "I Choose" are great, while "Mota", "All I Want", and "Way Down the Line" are fist pumping songs that harken back to the Offspring's classic punk days. Smash single "Gone Away" is still a great song, and besides the humerous clips "Disclaimer" and "Intermission", there's really no real filler tracks here. "Ixnay on the Hombre" is a fantastic look back at a time before the Offspring became mainstream darlings with "Americana", a time when Dexter Holland's lyrics still had some meaning to them and the chords and riffs weren't written to be radio friendly. Though there are times when you can sense a nig difference, and a bit of a step down, from the Offspring's earlier, and best, material, "Ixnay on the Hombre" still manages to be a superbly crafted disc, with the only real downside being that it has to come to an end. December 7, 2006

Great Release, Similar to Smash's style.

Each Offspring album is a bit different in its own small way. Although, this is the one probably most like their breakthrough masterpiece Smash. If you enjoyed Smash a lot, like I did, then this should be the next in line for you to try out. Not saying that their newer stuff is somehow not as good, they just have a slightly different sound that the earlier two. This follow up just shows how The Offspring are keeping their punk rock style sound strong with each release. It's also a really good follow up album. My favorite tracks are probably "Gone Away", "I Choose", "Amazed", and "Me & My Old Lady". Here's everything else rated...

2. The Meaning Of Life - 9.5/10
3. Mota - 9/10
4. Me & My Old Lady - 10/10
5. Cool To Hate - 10/10
6. Leave It Behind - 8.5/10
7. Gone Away - 10/10
8. I Choose - 10/10
10. All I Want - 9/10
11. Way Down The Line - 7.5/10
12. Don't Pick It Up - 9/10
13. Amazed - 10/10
14. Change The World - 10/10

Overall: 93% A-

It's just another solid release from The Offspring. If you enjoyed Smash you will probably enjoy this as well. It's just another good release by a pretty awesome punk rock band. September 2, 2006

awesome offspring album!

this has got to one of the offspring's best CDs, next to smash, and ignition! some of the songs like: "me & my old lady", "mota", "cool to hate", and "don't pick it up", are kind of wierd, but the other songs are awesome! some of the best include: "the meaning of life", "gone away", "i choose", "amazed", "all i want", "change the world", and just all the other songs that i didn't say was weird. the intro song is awesome, because it's spoken by jello biafra - and dead kennedys are like one of my favorite bands - so that's a huge plus! i think this is like more of an expiremental re-make of smash, and i'm just glad they didn't over do it, they just did it right. so anyways, if you're new to the offspring, you might wanna start with smash, or ignition, so you can get a better taste of their true sound. but if you already know who the offspring is - get this now! July 19, 2006

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