It’s easy to treat Blink-182 like a joke band – fun, too – but they possess an alchemy that transforms their juvenile, bash-you-over-the-head lyrics and formulaic songwriting. On One More Time, the unlikely new album released after a falling-out between Tom DeLonge and bandmates Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker, the pop-punk stalwarts capture the magic of youth, the consternation of age and the ever-present possibility of having a wank.
Their reunion came after Hoppus was diagnosed with cancer in 2021. On the title track, Hoppus and DeLonge trade verses and ask: “Do I have to die to hear you miss me?” It is the spiritual sibling to their 2004 smash I Miss You, down to the brushed drums and DeLonge’s wobbling, nasal delivery that recalls Kermit the Frog at his most emo.
Despite the nods to mortality, Blink have not lost their knack for crafting thumping choruses before hitting you with a ghostly, mesmeric bridge to remind you that life is fleeting and you might as well be in a sweaty pile of bodies yelling “olé olé olé” while you’re here (as they do on Dance With Me). Although the shtick wears thin, the record is occasionally punctured by something that feels genuinely wild and free – the Turn This Off! interlude sounds as though it could have been ripped straight from a 1997 Epitaph sampler.
Blink-182’s songs were once driven by the desire to gross out and annoy as many adults as possible; now it’s the stupid frailty of human connection and the ever-present spectre of death. Of course, there are still jokes about masturbating, having sex in a church and how to pronounce the word turpentine – but there’s an existential bent to the whole ordeal, too. As their younger selves sang in 1997: I guess this is growing up.
