There are a few ways to view Blink-182. To some, they are that band from the late ‘90s who got naked a lot. To others, they were a gateway into punk rock and the soundtrack to, you guessed it, growing up. But since the heady days of ‘Enema of the State’ and ‘Take Off Your Pants and Jacket’, their road has sometimes been a rocky one. They split for a while, following the release of their 2003 self-titled album, and reconvened for the disappointing ‘Neighborhoods’ five years ago. Now, they're back with a new line up. For a band that released a live record called ‘The Mark, Tom and Travis Show' at their peak, this is a big deal.
Tom DeLonge’s exit last year was messy, and continues to be confusing, but his replacement, Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba, has made one of the more seamless transitions in recent memory. Replacing a vocalist is always a hard sell, but Skiba’s own back catalogue works in his favour here. If you’re a pop-punk fan, you know his voice and his work. If you’ve been paying attention during the last few years, too, you’ll know that his recent releases with Alkaline Trio, and two solo records, outpunch anything put out by Blink in over a decade.
Sensibly, the reconfigured trio resolve to come storming out of the blocks on ‘California’, an album that does strike a line through any suggestions that Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker are flogging a nostalgic horse.
Cynical, which rattles along at the sort of clip mid-’90s Fat Wreck compilations did, sets the scene for what will follow as Hoppus and Skiba alternate verses and choruses, slinging pristine woah-ohs into the mix along the way. It’s fast, furious and, when stacked up against Blink’s best work, resolutely underwhelming.
‘California’ is almost slick enough to go in one ear and out the other. It cherry picks moments from Blink’s past, and a few from ‘Crimson’-era Trio, and runs off photocopies, offering the same basic thrill without any of the colours truly popping.
Producer John Feldmann delivers more of the gloss that has become his trademark, when not fronting Goldfinger, but doing so here feels a little counter-intuitive. The bands that Feldmann has helped sound like a million bucks - Good Charlotte, All Time Low, more recently 5 Seconds of Summer - all worked from Blink’s blueprints. Here, they sound exactly the same as the groups that arrived in their wake.
The album is also an unwieldy proposition. It's long, at 16 tracks, and uneven in its construction. Where ‘Enema…’ was paced to perfection, ‘California’ is pulled from the rails regularly, notably by the energy-sapping acoustic track Home Is Such a Lonely Place, the overwrought Bored to Death and throwaway nuggets like Built This Pool.
Lyrically, though, there's much to be enjoyed about the band’s sense of suspended animation. There are moments here that recall The Rock Show, and others where Hoppus lets his anxiety run wild. There is a sense throughout that they are still embracing the stuff that always made them tick without resorting to cynicism. On the other hand, ‘California’ isn't helped by its lyrical missteps (of which there are a few) being put under a microscope by the gleaming production.
As surprises go, Blink soldiering on without DeLonge is up there. Should Skiba remain behind the mic for the foreseeable future, though, there's plenty of chemistry and ideas here to suggest that the relationship might be a fruitful one. That's important, as it stands, because while Blink are still much better at this pop-punk lark than their pretenders, their own former glories are in danger of retreating across the horizon.
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