Columbia A & R
Out Now
Blink 182 are a band that appeared amidst the pop-punk explosion of the early to mid 90s. They are a band that I wanted to hate so much back in the day, but just couldn’t. Not only because it was pop punk, and I was a metal guy, but also because all the popular surf and skater kids liked it, and yeah, I was a metal guy. In saying all that, I do appreciate the odd Blink tune, and admittedly I even played a couple of their songs in my covers band last weekend.
Admittedly, one of those song only goes for 26 seconds and probably has more expletives than this review will. Hold your horses though, before you all get excited about me losing touch and joining a covers band, pull ya head in. It was a one-off event, and you missed it, so that’s your loss and I won’t hold it against you. Unless of course, you want me to, but just make sure you define what “it” is first.
One More Time kicks off with Anthem Part 3 which leads me to believe that there is an Anthem, and an Anthem 2? As you probably already know, I’d be correct, and I didn’t even need to google that because I may or may not be a bigger Blink fan than I would have anyone believe. Much like the other Anthems, it’s not actually that much of an Anthem as such, but it is a banger of a punk track to open the album up with and the performance and production is on point. Maybe too on point for a punk album!
I’m not dancing yet, so I won’t tell you to Dance With Me even though Blink tells you to, after telling you to have fun with it. “It” being masturbation in this instance. Please see my previous comment about “it” and be very careful what you wish for. It feels like they are coming on to us at this point in the album. Coming, was that a bad choice of words?
Probably, but if it’s good for them, it’s good for me too. Olay, olay, olay … olay? There is nothing like a good clap and some Casio keyboard at the start of a song. Well, maybe not the Casio keyboard, we could lose that from Fell In Love. To be honest, we could probably lose this track as it’s one of those Blink songs that gets dangerously close to straight-up Pop, and not so much Punk. Maybe if they release a funny video like All The Small Things I’ll let ‘em get away with it. For now, though, it’s a no from me!
Next up is Terrified and those dirty guitars in the intro have me thinking this tune might take a heavier direction. It doesn’t though, it slows down quite a bit and becomes a lovely vocal performance. Maybe a bit too lovely for a punk outfit, but it saves itself by jumping into a rocking pop-punk chorus.
You’ve all heard the next song, it’s the title track single they released called One More Time and as you know, it’s a slow burner. A slow burner that disappointed many of us waiting for a dirty punk banger. Everyone has gotta have a ballad though, right? No, no they don’t!
Moving on, and More Than You Know very quickly picks the pace up again thankfully. It’s even a little bit angrier than normal and there are some thumping double kicks throughout the track choruses. This is more like it, and probably could have been a mainstream single release the mainstream wasn’t so family friendly, or very alternatively hip hop sleazy.
Turn This Off tells us not to turn this off, for about 23 seconds. Back in the good ol’ days, When We Were Young would have been a classic pop-punk track that all the cool kids walked around singing about referring to being in primary school or something. This song is not about being that though, it’s actually about when all us old bastards, including Blink were young … a long, long time ago.
This next one was also released about a year ago, which I totally forgot about. I very quickly remembered though when the song kicked in and I instantly remembered the lyrics. It’s amazing how a song sticks in your head, even though you’ve probably only heard it a handful of times. I guess that’s the goal of a good pop-punk song though and Blink have nailed it with Edging.
You Don’t Know What You’ve Got also sounds very familiar like I’ve heard it before. Apparently, I haven’t though, so that again speaks to the formula of Blink 182 that always seems to have a certain familiarity to it. Another single possibly. There’s certainly no lack of them around these parts!
Blink Wave starts like some kind of New Wave song with a big synth. Play on words possibly, probably, almost certainly. I’m not sure how I feel about this, because it sounds like a blink song but also sounds like something by Orgy, who I also covered last weekend.
Anyway, enough about me, I’ll let you judge this one. Here I am thinking I’m about to get another ballad with the soft acoustic intro to Bad News, but I’m very quickly taken in completely the opposite direction with some fast-paced, in ya face, punk riffs! This is a break-up song, but not a Taylor Swift break-up song. Even though the lyrics are very pop-friendly, the music is a straight-up punk banger.
Track 13 is another interlude titled Hurt. It lasts 1:21 seconds, although I’m not sure why. I mean, it sounds epic, but I’m just not sure what the point of it is. More claps kick off Turpentine, or turpin-teen as the Yank’s pronounce it. Don’t even get me started on Aluminium, even though I’ll admit they probably had that one right at some point back in 1925. Luckily, we’ve progressed a little since then. Speaking of progressing, this song isn’t progressive at all, it’s pretty much just ya standard Blink pop-punk song.
Another 27-second interlude titled You Talk Too Much very quickly rips our heads off with some straight-up punk. No pop in that one, there’s no time for it!
Only two tracks to go now and Other Side launches straight back into the pop punk vibes with 3 chords and some lyrics which are very easy to sing along to. I reckon they’ve even borrowed some guitar lead melodies from another one of their popular songs, but I’ll let you figure that out for yourself. On a side note, a song should never stop for an acoustic interlude, that’s just uncalled for.
Maybe Blink was talking about being back in primary school in When We Were Young, and maybe they are talking about it now in Childhood. This one is definitely talking about being a kid, and although it has a heavy sound, it’s still a ballad which is maybe a bit of a dampener on an otherwise rocking album. Also, there really is no bed for the Casio keyboards again.
Well, what can I say, It’s a fucking good album. Probably too good to be honest, production-wise wise I mean. It’s super compressed, and super tight and almost feels programmed to an extent, especially with the synths and Casio keyboards that pop through here and there.
And, I’d almost say that the guitars are all recorded directly from modellers rather than real amps and cabinets because it just sounds so tight and flawless. Do I want to hear this live, with some real ambience, and unintended fuck-ups? Fuck oath I do, and you will too. Despite me wanting this to sound a little rawer, which you may too, Blink 182 have delivered again.
Now, if you could all join me in this old Blink banger we can get my expletives count back up to an acceptable standard. Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits, fart, turd and twat (x4)
I fucked your mum!
