Ah, blink-182. A band that is equivalent to a punch of nostalgia for a time when I wasn’t alive. My older sister listened to blink-182, passing the torch down to myself. There once was a time when a 12-year-old me was super riled up with angst and went for a long walk listening to their Greatest Hits CD on repeat. Super great, save for the fact that it was the middle of summer in Florida and I was not wearing any sunscreen, resulting in a wicked sunburn leaving my chest covered in sunburn blisters.
I’ve had a love/hate relationship with blink since then. It seemed like they never wanted to bring any tour to Florida, and if they did it, our schedules never seemed to match up to ensure that I could see them. Then there was all of that Tom leaving the band and coming back and Neighborhoods and the years it took for Tom to leave again. It seemed like my chances of seeing blink live were diminishing more and more as the years passed.
Alas, we fast forwards to now. Enter in Matt Skiba and blink has remained alive and well. Just this past weekend we were gifted with blink-182’s first album in five years. Aptly named California, the album’s lead single “Bored to Death” has been gracing radio stations and top suggestion playlists on Spotify and the like. Here’s what I’ve noticed about the album thus far:
The Album Sounds like an All Time Low album.
Now, this album was produced by John Feldmann of Goldfinger. If you’ve been keeping up with what Feldmann has been working on, his hands have touched many albums to be released recently, including All Time Low’s Future Hearts and whatever it is that 5 Seconds of Summer puts out. On first listen I noticed that the songs were nearly interchangeable. Maybe it’s just Feldmann’s thing – producing songs that are sonically vibrant and full. But it raises the question of whether or not this uniformity in sound across multiple artists leads to a less authentic sound.
We get it, California.
Blink is from California and it seems like they like to remind us with songs such as “Los Angeles,” “San Diego,” and even “California.” This trilogy of songs all seems redundant and not exciting, but whatever. Also, “Los Angeles” is kind of annoying in the same vein of “Centuries” by Fall Out Boy. I’ll probably never be able to repeatedly listen to the song due to the constant chanting of the song title.
Short, classic vulgarity.
“Built This Pool” and “Brohemian Rhapsody” harken back to the blink of yester-year and “Family Reunion” times. I'll leave it at that.
When it gets down to it, this album confuses me a lot. Not only is it long as hell, but it doesn’t leave this sort of everlasting mark after listening to it. Sure, “Bored to Death” is a banger, but this album is no Untitled, nor did I expect it to be. It’s a dangerous game trying to compare an artist’s old work to their current projects, but after a years-long wait I was left unimpressed and indifferent. Maybe my opinion will change with more listens, but overall I’d rate this album as one big shoulder-shrug. Regardless, I’ll still be dancing my face off when I see them this August for the first time. If there’s one good thing to come out of this album thus far, it’s the extensive tour.
