The Offspring - Anti-Valentine's Day with The Offspring (2025)

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The Offspring - Anti-Valentine's Day with The Offspring (2025)

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Woo hoo! There’s a new Offspring album 🙂 And it’s better than I expected 🙂 The three singles released before it varied in style – with only one of them, “Light It Up“, being traditional 1990s-style punk music – and this made me mildly nervous.

But the band have done their usual thing of saving the best stuff for the full album. And it’s not like I’m not going to buy an Offspring album – although I had to buy this one digitally because CD editions were either unavailable or comically expensive shortly before release.

Anyway, this review will be more of a “first impressions” type thing. Although I listened to random tracks on Youtube before buying it, I wanted to listen to the whole album in order at least once or twice before reviewing it. And, at just thirty-two minutes in length, it’s one of the shortest albums the band have ever released. But, for the most part, the band cram this short run-time with lots of great stuff. And punk albums aren’t exactly renowned for their length anyway.

Yes, the album is more varied in style and mood than their classic albums are. The emotional tone of it varies wildly between anger, joy, sorrow and moody angst. It’s clear that the band are trying to innovate, whilst also trying to appeal to all of their different types of fans. They’re also a long-running band with a long history which they reference musically throughout the album too. It’s one of those albums where you’ll probably like it as a whole, but really love about 2-3 tracks from it.

Nowhere is this better seen than in the opening track “Looking Out For #1”. It begins with an oddly slow and ominous intro before turning into more understated punk music. There are deeper backing vocals on the chorus. Quiet melodic, echoing pre-chorus moments. And then the song really begins. The best way I can describe this one is that it sounds like an enhanced version of one of the better late-album tracks from the band’s 2012 “Days Go By” album. There are hints of “Dividing By Zero” and “Slim Pickens” here, but it’s just so much more epic in some ways.

As hinted earlier, “Light It Up” was the song which reassured me about this album before it was released. It’s fast, hard-driving classic 1990s-style Offspring and it is an absolutely joy to listen to 🙂 The rhymes are tight, the guitars are fast and there are – of course – Dexter’s trademark “Whoa”s as well 🙂 Seriously, if you’re totally new to The Offspring, listen to this song first.

“The Fall Guy” is a slightly moodier song which reminds me of one of the more energetic tracks from the band’s 2003 album “Splinter”. It’s still fast and heavy though, with perfectly-placed “Whoa”‘s as well. Seriously, this album gets off to a really strong start with the first three tracks.

“Make It All Right” was the first single from the album and it divided opinion. Seasoned fans will know that The Offspring released joke “pop music” songs as singles in 1998 and 2012. But, whilst this song initially appeared to be a very well-made example of this, with a random spoken-word intro and stuff like that, it works surprisingly well in the context of the full album. After the anger and moodiness of the first three songs, this joyous pop-punk song (with emphasis on “Pop”) will catch you by surprise. It adds a more balanced mood to the album and it’s a surprisingly catchy and feel-good song that grew on me a lot.

Initially, I thought that “Ok, But This Is The Last Time” would be the album’s *rolls eyes* slow song. And it… sort of… is. It initially starts out like this with sung vocals, quieter/softer music, a relationship theme etc… but then the song actually picks up a bit during the chorus and some of the verses. Yes, it’s probably my least-favourite song on the album, but there’s also a nostalgic quality to it too. Like there are moments which sound like the sort of moody rock song you’d expect to hear on the radio during the late 1990s.

But this track is then followed up by my favourite track on the album – “Truth In Fiction”. When I first heard a preview clip of it on Youtube a day or two ago, I initially mistook it for Bad Religion’s 1993 song “Recipe For Hate”. And, yes, a few moments sound similar but the song quickly becomes its own thing. It’s a fast, lyrically-dense two-minute blast of a song 🙂 It’s a Bad Religion song, even including some harmonised vocals, but one written by The Offspring. And it is really cool 🙂 It makes cynical points about misinformation, deep-fakes and stuff like that – and this topical stuff is a refreshing change from the more general, introspective, relationship-based etc… themes of many of the other songs. Cynically criticising society just feels more punk.

The album’s third single, “Come To Brazil”, is a goofier and more light-hearted song about the band’s Brazilian fans pestering them to play concerts there. There are some fast guitar parts, but the song also includes some “arena rock” type segments and also a random segment from that “Ole” football song. It’s a silly light-hearted punk song, but it is very well-written and sounds like the band goofing around and having fun.

“Get Some” has hints of classic rock and surf rock to it, but it is also surprisingly reminiscent of the band’s 1994 song “Bad Habit” (albeit without the epic “You stupid…” segment. Come to think of it, this album doesn’t even have an “Explicit lyrics” warning! To quote NOFX “This f–king record’s rated G!”…) but the song also contains some very subtle hints of the band’s 2008 song “Hammerhead” too. It’s a song that I liked, but it’ll probably grow on me even more over time.

“You Can’t Get There From Here” is a more earnest and emotional song which sounds like something from the band’s 2003 album “Splinter”. It has that sort of gloomy early-mid 2000s heaviness to it. And, whilst it thankfully isn’t a “slow song”, it feels like one of the slower songs from the album. Dexter’s vocals also seem slightly more melodic as well.

“Hanging From A Thread” steps things up during the intro, speeding up and getting louder before suddenly falling silent and turning into a slow song for a few moments before the guitars start pounding and the song becomes the sort of epic early-mid 2000s punk song that sounds like a cross between the fun rebellious punk music of “Conspiracy Of One” (2000) and the gloominess of “Splinter ” (2003).

All in all, this is a really good album 🙂 But it’s one of those albums where, regardless of which type of Offspring fan you are, you’ll like some songs better than others. Yes, a whole album with the energy of “Light It Up” and “Truth In Fiction” would easily rival the band’s classics from the 1990s. But none of the other songs are exactly “bad” here, and I have to admit that I got some teenage nostalgia from the moodier “Splinter” (2003)-style songs as well. It’s an album with a varied stylistic and emotional palette and, whatever type of Offspring fan you are, you’ll have 2-3 favourite songs from it.

If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get four and a half.