'Splinter'ing the gap between pop and punk

Starting with its switch from indie fave Epitaph Records to mega-corporate Columbia in 1996, the Offspring has been fighting to retain its street cred as a hard-driving, honest band that plays a somewhat unique mélange of punk and metal.\nUnfortunately for the band, the massive success of 1998's Americana hinged on the runaway popularity of two singles -- "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)" and "Why Don't You Get a Job?" -- that amounted to little more than punk-inspired novelty hits. That, for many listeners and critics, was proof that the once-hardcore quartet had gone hopelessly mainstream.\nAmericana, which sold more than 11 million copies, also overshadowed the Offspring's best effort, 1997's Ixnay on the Hombre, a shockingly mature album that featured such emotionally and intellectually developed cuts as "The Meaning of Life," "Gone Away" and "Change the World."\nHowever, the band rebounded from the shameful success of Americana with another solid, albeit less appreciated, album in 2000, Conspiracy of One, which proved that the guys weren't going to limit themselves to simple, straight-ahead punk or metal by showing an impressive ability to touch on many musical genres.\nSo where does that leave the group with its latest release, Splinter? It's hard to tell. In general, the CD is much harder and more focused than the previous three Columbia efforts; the songs are shorter (the 12 tracks add up to just more than 32 minutes), louder and faster. On solid cuts like "The Noose" and "Race Against Myself," vocalist Dexter Holland displays an intense, halfway-effective self-introspection, while "Spare Me the Details," about a cheating girlfriend, resonates with the type of weary resignation that is universal to all jilted lovers.\nHowever, the band still can't resist a little popular pandering; the album's lead single, "Hit That," features a corny, even annoying keyboard riff that makes the song sound, well, silly, while the ska-influenced "The Worst Hangover Ever" has all the maturity of the average IU frat boy. "When You're in Prison," meanwhile, is an admirable but failed attempt at parodying the classic crooners of the 1930s and '40s that falls victim to repeated and decidedly non-humorous references to, ahem, anal rape.\nThe Offspring deserves props for attempting to straddle the lines between punk credibility, artistic growth and popular success. Although the band doesn't always succeed at that, the guys sometimes get it right.