Mosh!

[Video][Website]
[5.50]

Jer Fairall: From Untitled Teen Sex Romp Project (2000): EXT. HIGHWAY – DAY.  Four recent high school graduates (suggested casting: Devon Sawa as suave ladies’ man MIKE “MURPH” MURPHY, Freddie Prinze Jr. as sensitive rich kid PRESTON OWENS III, Seann William Scott as secretly virginal party animal BRENT “ASSMAN” ASKOWITZ, and DJ Qualls as anxiety-ridden Born Again Christian introvert SPENCER “SPAZZ” SHORT) speed down a deserted stretch of interstate on their way towards a weekend of beaches, booze and babes at a to-be-determined vacation hotspot. In the backsteat, ASSMAN noisily sleeps off the previous night’s hangover alongside a nervous SPAZZ, who clutches a leather-bound bible in one had and an asthma inhaler in the other.  In the front seat of the convertible, PRESTON (in the driver’s seat) and MURPH (on the passenger’s side) tap their hands on the car’s exterior through the open windows to the song (suggested soundtrack: something loud and raucous yet melodic and tuneful, new but by an easily recognizable current rock act) that plays over the opening credits.
[4]

Jonathan Bogart: I’m pretty sure that when the Simon Reynolds of late-90s Warpedapalooza scene writes the definitive history of the era, the Offspring will finally receive their due as some of the the sharpest songwriters in the pack, their decade-long exploration of adolescent insecurities about class, race, sex, money, and age, owing just as much to the Beastie Boys as to Bad Religion and Metallica, forming one of the great works of the Nineties Canon. “Days Go By” applies their formula to middle age, and if it doesn’t work quite as well now, suburban anomie and the anxieties of plenty are no longer the primary sources of white male angst.
[6]

Anthony Easton: I haven’t heard the Offspring for a decade, so before I wrote a review that said I liked the pop punk better than whatever this is. I went back and listened to the pop punk. This song, and my diligence, made me realise I didn’t actually like The Offspring at all.
[3]

Brad Shoup: After my modern-rock flirtation leveled out, I saw the Offspring for what they were: an evil act. Dexter Holland’s stucco-quality vocal resisted any real entry; their biggest hits were bellowed, impermeable nightmares of self-assertion — a sick parody of hardcore’s best anguished yawps. With one giant interpolated exception, their duodenum-straining melodic sense just struck me as fascist. As Holland settles into middle age, though, he’s by necessity eased up on the hollers. “Days Go By” is a fine late-career single, the kind of thing the Foo Fighters keep whiffing at. (Each band has now made a sly reference to New Day Rising… whether it’s nostalgia or aspiration or even a coincidence, I can’t say.) They’ve swapped red-level riffage for clean, biting lines, and a vocal with fine melodic bends and a real sense of hope. Without being pejorative, it’s workmanlike, the kind of summation-of-existence songs that I’m always going to credit for the attempt.  
[8]

Alfred Soto: The crystalline production and don’t-look-back lyrics persuaded me that these vets had been listening to Against Me! As it its the song is amiable and would sound nice played on acoustic guitars, which you couldn’t say about Against Me!
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Wow, like, the Offspring have sure had a lot of singles since I last heard one. I guess this may or may not be a return to some kind of form, given that the riff sounds like an above-average Foo Fighters single. It’s certainly got a lot more melodic chops than their average shout-shout-be-angry (ca. Smash) or lol-irony-and/or-oompah (ca. Americana) past would have led you to predict, if that’s what you’re after. So basically it’s a competent modern rock track from an act who may or may not have had another one since 1999, but it’s not quite good enough to make me want to find out if I’m wrong about that.
[6]