Well aged pop punk / rock heroes BLINK-182 have finally released their new album “Nine” through Columbia Records. The multi-producer oouting marks their secong full length with Matt Skiba taking the place Tom DeLonge.
Unlike “Enema Of The State,” which has joke songs like “Dysentery Gary,” or hyper sexual albums like “Take Off Your Pants And Jacket,” “Nine” is an ode to adults who are still basically angsty teens at heart. They go to work, do laundry, and commute, but still, they rock out.
Per The Atlantic, it mixes the band’s OG sound with the sound of contemporary pop music. Essentially, it’s grown with its fanbase and has properly matured with the times. I dig it. / Distractify
This is the band’s second excellent album with singer-bassist Mark Hoppus at the helm and Alkaline Trio frontman Matt Skiba as skipper. (Travis Barker, returns, thankfully, on drums.) Skiba sounds nothing like DeLonge. Matt is cool, even suave, as a singer — the greased pompadour to Tom’s spiky bangs and Mark’s dorky faux-hawk. Hoppus remains endearingly awkward as the star, earnest without the naked neediness of so many other emo men. It goes without saying that they keep the double entendres in their pants, but the album’s not without a sense of humor. / RollingStone
The new songs are largely about healing—from depression, anxiety, failed relationships, a broken political system—and feature the signature Blink-182 sound, combining punky guitar and drums with earwormy pop melodies. The album jumps from lighthearted, upbeat tracks to more heavy-hitting ones as a result. Lead single “I Really Wish I Hated You,” a catchy breakup track that veers way more pop than punk, is starkly different to “Heaven,” a meatier track written about the 2018 mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, California. “It means a lot to me personally,” Hoppus says. “What started off as a song about broken hearts became a song about living in America in 2019.” Then there are tracks like “Happy Days,” which sound poppy but have a darker underbelly. “You’re like, This is a happy song, but the lyrics are about me dragging myself out of occasional depressions,” Hoppus says. / Vogue
