“Older, but nothing’s any different,” croons Mark Hoppus on the title track of Blink-182’s ninth album One More Time.... Bells toll and dragged guitar phrases drone out the soppy sadness of the Californian pop-punk outfit’s reunion with guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge (who has been absent for seven years).
On the same song, DeLonge charts their bro-mantic journey from “strangers to brothers... brothers to strangers”, before Hoppus responds with the acknowledgment that “it shouldn’t take a sickness or airplanes falling out of the sky” for them to get back into the studio together. The line addresses both Hoppus’s 2021 cancer diagnosis (he’s had the all-clear since) and drummer Travis Barker’s survival of a 2008 Learjet crash, in which four people died. Barker was left with severe burns, a back broken in three places and a temporarily numb right hand.
Fans will be happy to hear that the band’s energy hasn’t been dimmed by their various travails – or ages. The funereal “One More Time” is one of only a few slower numbers on a 17-track album that finds the boys locking tight into thrashing, skate-park grooves, which will no doubt take listeners back to their 1990s origins.
Mosh pits will be frantic and sweaty thanks to the opener, “Anthem Part 3”, on which Barker batters his drum kit like a man possessed. He tilts his snare drum away from him and you can feel that extra exertion of reaching up and over, stick tumbling down and looping back. The track shifts through different gears, though, never quite catches hold of a melody.
They maintain this pelting pace on “Dance With Me”, bawling about their stamina: “Doin’ it all night long.” They have fun with some perky hand claps and “nah-nah-nahs” on the more tuneful mall-rock of “Fell in Love”, and go for some ragged riffing on “Terrified”. You can feel the slide of DeLonge’s fingers up the fretboard as he smashes out the power chords. On “Turpentine”, they dial up the high-school locker room tone, calling out: “Cleanse your mind of ketamine/ Slide your mom on top of me.”
On typical “naughty boy” form in a recent interview with guitar.com, Hoppus revealed that he builds wrist stamina by masturbating. “If you don’t masturbate, you can’t play punk rock,” he declared. That may explain why some of the riffing here sounds rather disposably tossed off. In the same interview, he also revealed that the band now record with click tracks, in order to keep the beat steady and prevent Barker from “going into Mach 2” (aka twice the speed of sound). But I worry that takes some of the chaotic thrill out of proceedings.
There are a couple of quirky “interludes”, including the punky outburst of “Turn This Off!” and the insistent synth-driven “Hurt”, which channels a little of The Psychedelic Furs’ gritty Eighties yearning. Single “Edging” is designed to get fists pumping the air with its chant-along chorus of “Get the rope”, vocals flying free of the otherwise graffiti-dense noise.
The album closes with the hovering synths and loping stride of “Childhood”, which finds the trio in the same nostalgic mood as the title track. “Remember when we were young… I never thought we’d end up here.” It’s hardly revelatory stuff. The album could have been shorter and catchier but fans will feel their cockles warmed and their pulses raised.
‘One More Time...’ is out on 20 October via Columbia Records
