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One More Time…, Blink-182
For years the best thing iconic skate-punkers Blink-182 have been involved with, if inadvertently, is US standup Whitmer Thomas’ viral bit about their 2004 hit I Miss You. While they first exploded with bratty, fast, catchy classics like Dammit and Josie, Thomas’ bit expertly captures the discomfort of the band’s late-period existence: they had ambitions to get serious, deep even, but it fit them like a chicken suit, imitations of Tom DeLonge’s “hear your voice of treason!” never failing to earn a chuckle – mockery and affection, at once – in karaoke rooms the world over.
Mark, Tom and Travis: Blink-182’s peak trio return for their first album in 12 years.
That the band splintered soon after was inevitable; I Miss You is what the phrase “creative differences” sounds like. Now, after multiple (forgettable) releases with Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba, new album One More Time… marks the official reunion of the band’s imperial lineup, featuring DeLonge, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker, and their first album together since their last reunion, 2011’s Neighborhoods. Tellingly, the album’s title track is a sequel to I Miss You – the same melody pegged to maudlin lyrics about Barker’s near-death plane crash and Hoppus’ recent cancer diagnosis. Spiritually, it’s touching; aurally, just give me M+Ms.
Considering the rush that greeted the announcement of Blink’s reunion tour, due to hit Australia in February, it seems many people were rooting for their comeback. It comes at a particularly opportune time – stars such as Olivia Rodrigo, Willow Smith and Machine Gun Kelly returned ’90s pop-punk to mainstream ubiquity, while Barker has become a generation’s go-to punk deity, gaining credits on releases by everyone in recent years – literally, everyone – from Doja Cat to Young Thug to Amy Shark and beyond.
Perhaps fitting of his victory lap, Barker’s presence on One More Time… is wild. If you don’t think over-drumming’s a thing, just listen to More Than You Know or Bad News, which contain more fills than a dentist’s office. Should a drummer have this much power? No, especially if they already have the best Kardashian.
For the rest of the band, little’s changed – identity crisis is Blink’s permanent identity now. In a rather democratic way, the album splits the difference between their silly and serious. Dance with Me opens with a spoken-word riff on masturbation that’s sure to evoke plaintive sighs from 40-somethings recalling the band’s peak, while Turn This Off! and F— Face are returns to their thrashy, joke songs of yore, snotty and over in 27 seconds. If such cheek feels unseemly for men pushing 50 and beyond, it’s still their peak mode so I’ll take it.
The alternative is tedious stuff that goes for emotional grandeur, like More Than You Know, which opens with brooding piano for chrissakes, and When We Were Young, You Don’t Know What You’ve Got and Childhood, all sad songs steeped in old-man regret. “2023, who the f— are we?… where did our childhood go, I wanna know,” sings DeLonge on the latter, and you wish he’d just say something cool about aliens already.
If the album’s hardly worth a repeat, it does produce one track destined for Blink’s next greatest hits, which might be achievement enough: Other Side, a bouncy number fuelled by Hoppus’ yearning romanticism, that finds the perfect balance between the band’s off-the-cuff silliness and something more earnest, with Barker bat-bat-batting away while Hoppus sings that “we’ll always have that coffee life”. Songs about coffee: they’re great and there’s just not enough of them. Well, I guess this is growing up.
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