SINGLE: The Offspring - Hammerhead

Headlining the Saturday at this year’s Download Festival is testament to how established the Offspring's loud skate-punk has become over the past decade and over. Considered an ‘old’ band (Dexter Holland, singer, is now in his forties) by most, they’ve knocked out loads of great tunes over the years: I Want You Bad, The Kids Aren’t Alright, Hit That and All I Want to name but a few. Yes, you remember listening to them when you were ten. Don’t worry, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

It’s regarded that all their work up to ‘Ixnay on the Hombre’ is their best, with music following that being not up to par – 2003’s Splinter shifted enough units, but fans were not best pleased as a whole. They have a new album to look forward to however, released at a later date this year, and Hammerhead is first single. After listening once, twice and a thousand other desperate times I have come to this undeniable conclusion: it’s really shit. Oh my, how long I’ve had it on eternal repeat to wrestle out something I like about it. Yet, there isn’t. For shame, Offspring!

Let me start with the structure. It’s so loosely based and flung out everywhere, at this moment in time I can still not tell you which part is the chorus. The bulk of the song is such a mess, I will not comment on it until we reach any point of distinction. Ah, that would be the ‘middle-eight’ (apostrophised because it sounds like a completely different stinking song), with the most stereotypical riff the band could conjure looping in a half-daze while Holland yelps out vocal hooks which - you can tell from his over-confident zeal - he thinks are the dog’s bollocks. All this plus the most inconsistent timbres the band has ever shat out, and the crushing disappointment of knowing this is the band which created Self-Esteem really is an unwelcome slap in the face. Knowing they almost definitely will play it at Download makes me hate it even more.

Note to Offspring: make a better song or I’ll never play Crazy Taxi again.

Overall – 1.5 / 10

Get it? – Titty-fucking Christ, no. Download ‘Ixnay on the Hombre’.