Review: OFF! – Wasted Years

In 2010, when footage of OFF! first started showing up online, fans of old California hardcore music lost their minds. Was Keith Morris actually fronting a punk rock super-group that could savagely jam 17 songs into less than 20 minutes? He was, and they could—it was incredible. Skip forward four years, and here we are with OFF!’s third full-length release. It’s not bad, but it begs the question as to whether we need 17 more songs that sound eerily similar to the previous two albums. With Wasted Years, the band revisits familiar themes of Reagan-era politics and self-destruction with the accuracy of a surgeon and the weight of a Mack truck. Even though the energy behind the 23-minute opus is starting to show its age, I can’t think of a more qualified group of guys to bare their teeth and plug away. –James Bennett