blink 182 - "Neighborhoods" stream/review

Okay, first off, that album art rules. Just had to say it.

My relationship with blink 182 is like most music lovers, I find, except in the fact that I don't deny it. For many folks, blink was the intro drug that got them into louder, faster, and better music. For alot of other people, they're a nostalgia band who wrote insanely catchy and fun music which was surprisingly musically adept at times. For almost everyone who takes themselves to seriously (*cough people who call themselves punks or hipsters cough*) they are a guilty pleasure to NEVER be acknowledged.

But, I'm lucky enough to live in a city where blink 182 gets a modicum of respect! The Grown Ups, fantastic local band, does alot of covers of older blink tunes (particularly from dude ranch.) Most of my friends flock to blink shows, whenever they end up in town. Everyone loves blink 182! They sound like junior high and high school rolled into one, with a ton of dick
jokes to compliment it.

So now, they've gotten back together and wrote a new album called "Neighborhoods." And I just listened to a stream of it online, it gets officially released in two weeks. What do I think of it?

It just doesnt sound like blink 182 to me anymore. I could really break it down and construct a well developed analysis of why (and trust me, I will), but the teenager in me who loves blink just says "its not fun, its not immature, its not blink."

It's natural for bands to change and evolve and there are tons of them that turned out fantastically. When The Thermals did "Personal lives," gone was (most of) the lo-fi riff heavy punk stuff, replaced by personally written non political songs with a serious Modest Mouse/Death Cab indie vibe to it. It ruled. And it still sounded like The Thermals. The Undertones experimented with slower, more progressive songs after writing three buzzsaw pop punk albums. Against Me, despite what everyone says, still sounds like Against Me despite not writing simplistic acoustic anarcho songs anymore.
Even blink themselves wrote that self titled album years ago which experimented with synthesizers, intricate song patterns, and more mature lyrics. But it still sounded like Blink 182.

"Neighborhoods" is full of breakdown drum solos, spacy guitar effects, heavy riffs, heavy handed lyrics, plenty of heart-on-the-shoulder type sentiments. On paper this sounds awesome and its actually pretty good in practise. Listening to the album, I bobbed my head once in awhile, even found myself humming along with choruses.
But it is to apparant to me that each member of blink spent so much time doing side projects and as such, I dont hear a cohesive "blink 182" sound anymore. Tom DeLonge bends his voice into the pseudo whiney howl he uses with "Angels and Airwaves," while playing his guitar like it is a rocketship/synth/thing. Travis Barker spends most of his time showing us, the listener, how great a fucking drummer he thinks he is by dicking about with his high hats and throwing in a drum breakdown every 30 seconds, a habit born from making all his solo remixes of famous songs with drum beats. Mark Hoppus is the only guy who seems to know what blink is and what it should sound like, stretching his voice into really cool dimensions and playing solidly catchy bass lines while probably scissor kicking.
Mind you, its not up to a listener such as myself to tell blink 182 what they should and should not sound like. Thats for the band members themselves to decide. But I think they are trying to unify to many sounds at once, and as such, are forgetting what made them such a great band to begin with. Yea they have grown as musicians, and maybe that in itself is the problem. Tons of people listen to Dude Ranch or untitled not because it was particularly unique or different, but because they were instantly recognizable and fun. "Neighborhoods," while not exactly bad, sounds like any number of other bands or typical Warped Tour generic crap that passes for "Pop Punk" today. (I'm looking at you, All Time Low.)

So pick it up when it comes out if your curious, you might just enjoy it and think its another step forward for them as a band. I am indeed glad they are back and doing shows! But while I realize this is probably the direction they want to take as a band, I am always gonna be weirded out by this new sound they have cultivated for themselves. It just doesn't sound like what blink 182 should sound like to me, personally. I just pop in a copy of Dude Ranch and party down instead!

- Nathan