This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.

The Offspring: Dexter Holland, Noodles (vocals, guitar); Greg K (vocals, bass).

Additional personnel includes: Suzie Katayama (strings); Jason Powell (saxophone); Phil Jordan (trumpet); Erich Marbach (trombone); Brendan O'Brien (piano); Ronnie King (keyboards); Josh Freese (drums); Juan Alvarez (bells); Mark Moreno (scratches); Jim Lindenberg, Jack Grisham, Lauren Kinkade (background vocals).

Recorded at Henson Recording Studios, Los Angeles, California and Southern Tracks Recording, Atlanta, Georgia.

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.

Ten years after their breakthrough hit, "Keep 'Em Separated," and 14 years after their debut, the Offspring maintains pace with SPLINTER. Since the last release, the band has lost longtime drummer Ron Welty, who's replaced here by A Perfect Circle skins-pounder Josh Freese. There's no discernible let-up in momentum; Dexter and company are essentially pursuing the same stylistic path they've been on from the beginning. Even though they achieved fame at the tail end of the grunge era, their '80s beginnings make them the grand old men of third-wave punk, and SPLINTER consequently bears a lot more gravitas than the efforts of younger pop-punks.

As usual, the band throws in a touch of ska-punk, this time with cautionary drinking tale "The Worst Hangover Ever," complete with horn section. And there are a couple of diversions from the norm--Ronnie King's wah-wah synth lightening things up on "Hit That," the acoustic guitar textures of "Spare Me the Details"--but the tried-and-true smart-aleck lyrics and pounding punk cadences that ensnared Offspring fans from the get-go are still very much in evidence.

What the critics say...

Spin (01/04, p.97) - "...They prove they're still pretty fly for old guys..." - Grade: B-
Q (1/04, p.121) - 3 stars out of 5 - "SPLINTER sounds like a band who know exactly what they're doing....There are some cracking punk rock tunes here."
Mojo (Publisher) (12/03, p.109) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[T]his is still a varied and extremely capable band, with SPLINTER displaying all the subtle, sometimes subversive humour and understated scope."