The Offspring
Smash

THE REVIEW

No celebratory reissue, no huge box set with three or more vinyl records stuffed with live recordings or pseudo bootlegs inside. We will not have a book crammed with archive photographs for the thirtieth anniversary of an album that sold more than eleven million copies worldwide.

In the era of streaming, which has forced major labels to find new solutions to move the market, with colored long-playing records and deluxe versions to stretch the soup, there is no proper masquerade party for “Smash”, the third iconic work by the Offspring.

This feels a bit off, but it gives us back that dimension that belonged to the last decade of the old century. A less fleeting and more concrete dimension, where a sold record really had significant weight. It's rumored that Epitaph's father, Brett Gurewitz, already guitarist of Bad Religion, had to mortgage his home to print more copies of “Smash” to meet the mad demand from the public. This speaks to the fortunes of an independent label, the only one to date holding the sales record for a single publication.

Thinking that with two decent albums behind them (The Offspring/Ignition), Dexter Holland was still running errands for the label, Noodles was a janitor at a middle school, Ron Welty a baker, and Greg K a copy shop employee, the prequel of the story takes on cinematic hues. All this after a very demanding tour just completed around America, alongside Pennywise and in the Old Continent with NOFX.

And if the appetite grows with eating... The ingredients were certainly not lacking, nor was the desire to establish themselves and live off their passion, music. The corner of the eye saw the more famous colleagues expand, and time passed quickly. Thus, Dexter and company decided to put soul and body into those fourteen tracks, merging punk, surf, ska sounds, and a lot of youthful rage.

The voice of actor John Mayer (who will also be present in “IXNAY” and “Americana”) opens the dances with the spoken track “Time To Relax”, and from this point forward, it will be pure energy. From the frantic snare of “Nitro”, we move to the madness of “Bad Habit”, conceived by Dexter during long and slow trips in his battered Toyota pickup. A real oxymoron comes to mind during the listening.

“Gotta Get Away” provides a breather, like a good midtempo, then we get back that snare from earlier in “Genocide," which doesn’t hold back from political denunciation: “Dog eat dog, to get by, hope you like my genocide” Holland screams wildly on the refrains. Made of the same stuff is “Something To Believe In”, which has the thankless task of preceding the iconic single par excellence: “Come Out And Play”. Jason McLane, a die-hard fan of the band, was given the chance to make history by delivering the whispered voice of “You Gotta Keep’em Separated," which flows into the oriental riffs that, since that distant 1994, would never leave our heads. This would be the single that contributes to the overwhelming success of “Smash” and provides solutions for the creation of other iconic pieces like “Original Prankster”, “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" or “Hit That”. “Self Esteem”, which not by chance occupies the next position, is the second iconic smash hit, albeit slower and more cumbersome. At the middle of the tracklist, the peak is reached, after which it doesn't slow down until the end, except for “What Happened to You”, which pushes us into the ska dimension, making us have fun and flail along to the choruses.

“It’ll Be a Long Time”, “Killboy Powerhead”, “So Alone”, “Not the One”, and the closing eponymous “Smash”, are solely riffs and power. The four from Garden Grove do not want to hide their admiration (and inspiration) towards “Bad Religion”, “Pennywise”, “NOFX”, “Dead Kennedys”, “Social Distortion”, “Black Flag” and they make it clear in words and deeds.

“Smash” is a work that traverses decades, gathering continuous acclaim. It doesn’t hide the traces of time, which it manages to disguise, although it always sounds current. Dexter Holland's shouting voice and nasal timbre, Noodles' riffs that range from punk rock to metal, Greg Kiesel's bass notes, and Ron Welty's incendiary sticks, have given an unrepeatable imprint to a historic and iconic record, arriving on the heels of Kurt Cobain's disappearance, which traumatized the continuity of a genre that was iconic in its own right for the time it represented.

“Smash” is the anthem of a generation and the symbol of 1990s Californian punk, as “Nimrod” was for the illustrious colleagues “Green Day”.

It has already been talked about a lot, it has already been listened to a lot, but apparently, it's never enough.

Because, as they say, the important thing is that it's talked about. But even more important is that it's heard being talked about.