Album Review: Blink 182 - One More Time

There is a reality out there that tragedy brings people together. It shouldn't always take something horrible to remind us of who is important in our lives, or what we still want to achieve, but sometimes clarity can only come when all else is lost. That might explain why Blink 182 is now back together. With plane crashes and cancer (does a relationship with a Kardashian count?) serving as reminders of how fragile everything is, the band put aside everything that broke them up, and have reunited for... one more time.

Maybe I've gone soft as I've gotten older, but when three people come back together after contemplating their mortality, and they are now approaching middle age, I expect a little more from their first statement than a f'n cum joke.

"Edging" was how we learned the band was back, and it did not bode well. It's one of the poorest singles this version of the band ever put out, it's annoying to the extreme in its construction, and it highlighted a problem that is going to be unavoidable when talking about however long this era of Blink winds up being.

That problem is that while this is the classic Blink lineup, it doesn't sound like classic Blink. That is entirely down to Tom's voice, which sounds even less like Blink than did the lineup with Matt Skiba. Tom is an alien conspiracy enthusiast, so maybe he'll appreciate this, but his vocals sound like he is an alien replicant whose software hasn't yet mastered the nuances of cloning human speech. It's a jarring experience to listen to him, kind of enjoy the song, and only halfway through realize that it's Tom singing. Mark is the one who has gone through physical trauma, and yet he sounds like he always has (albeit a bit more tired).

The worst is when Tom takes his turn on the emotional title track. Between what his voice has become, and the reverb they put on to mask it, he sounds like what bad CGI looks like in a movie. It's a facsimile of something real, and I don't know how to reconcile the present with the past. I still have a lot of fondness for "Enema Of The State" and "Take Off Your Pants And Jacket", but those memories are standing in the way of properly assessing what I'm hearing now.

"Edging" remains the low point of this record, and with sixteen other tracks, it easily could have been cut without being missed. However, that wouldn't solve the issue of these songs often being underwritten. "Dance With Me" uses 'na na' nonsense to fill out the chorus, and other songs lean heavily into repetition to fill out the still short running times. 'Catchy' is not a word I would use to describe these songs.

But ultimately, this record is about nostalgia, and that's where things really get tricky. This record is trying to be nostalgic for both Blink's comedic and serious sides, and I don't know how those can coexist on the same record. I mean, I suppose they can seriously miss the days of being assholes, but that's not the same thing. This is a far cry from Johnny Cash looking back on his life when he recorded "Hurt". That was powerful and moving, while this is just sad.

I say this is sad because Blink is unable to sound like Blink anymore, and I think more than anything it reminds us that you can't always go home again. Sometimes the past is gone, and moving on to new things is the way it has to be.