The Offspring's major-label debut, "Smash," skyrocketed onto the charts in 1994 just as the music business was reeling from the death of Kurt Cobain. America's disaffected youth searched for a new voice -- one that could speak to their troubles and allow them to have a laugh at the same time.

With songs like "Self Esteem" and "Come Out & Play" the Offspring provided a kind of self-deprecating humor only glimpsed in punk songs of yore. But it worked, adding a lighthearted spin to the very-dour "alternative" scene. This year the band returns with "Ixnay on the Hombre," due in stores February 4. While this newest offering exhibits little emotional growth or departure from earlier work, "Ixnay" wears a grin on its face that's hard to resist.

Jello Biafra, former singer of the Dead Kennedys, opens the record with a quasi-goofy spoken-word "Disclaimer" which asks kids to protect their families from the ideas therein and to be understanding toward its depiction of "real things... commonly known as life."

The band immediately introduces its keyed-up pace in "The Meaning of Life," a tempo which hammers throughout the record in songs like "Mota" and the first single, "All I Want." It is this indeed this velocity -- and the irresistable sing-along vocals of Dexter Holland -- which make "Ixnay" such an addictive piece of work.

However, downtempo songs prove to be a bit of an Achilles heel. While "Gone Away" -- a rumination on the death of a loved one -- reveals a tender aspect of the Offspring, the structure and melody of the ballad are shamelessly generic. It could have been sung by, say, Jon Bon Jovi or Alanis Morrisette.

Other tunes revive hope in the band's imagination; "Cool to Hate" satirizes the cynicism of today's youth ("Positivity's so uncool"). The verses of "Don't Pick It Up" play on the song title -- warning against everything from dog excretia to venereal disease -- while Noodles' fun-loving, ska-inspired guitar lick bounces along behind.

"Ixnay" was produced by Dave Jerden, who's twisted the dials for heavyweights like Social Distortion and Jane's Addiction. Nowhere is this more apparent than in "Me & My Old Lady," a deliciously randy Jane's-esque treatise on, ahem, public affection. Here the Offspring return to the gypsy scales that infected "Come Out & Play." Snake-charmed guitars add both lust and light to lines like, "When in this position I'm the luckiest man alive/Quenching my libido/Passing time away... So what if we're making a scene now?... Go on and stare/'Cause we don't care."

Although "Ixnay" is utterly listenable, it breaks little new ground for this Orange County quartet. They've played it safe by recording an album so similar to its predecessor that audiences may have trouble distinguishing between the two. Even a great band can't survive if it continues to rely on the same formula. The Offspring may be the mutant child of punk and metal, but it could soon find itself stranded in the gene pool before it can say "Darwin."

This article was originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle.