It’s been eight years since Blink 182, formerly the sideways-baseball-capped scion of all that was pop punk, released an album. In the interim, there have been side projects, plane crashes and painkiller addiction. Now, after a two year recording sesssion, they are finally releasing their brooding sixth album. You read that right: the band who brought you the gleefully naughty Enema Of The State and Take Off Your Pants And Jacket have grown up. Everything about Neighbourhoods, from its Arcade Fire-invoking title to its dour woodcut artwork and (for Blink 182) prog-rock pretensions screams ‘get serious about this’.
They pull it off with conviction: gone is the slapstick we formerly took for granted, replaced with middle-aged meditations on adolescence and failed relationships set to some seriously memorable hooks.
‘Kaleidoscope’ owes more to the blue-collar punk of The Hold Steady than it does to Green Day, while potential single ‘Snake Charmer’ boasts a guitar line blatantly purloined from The Cure, set to a sneaking synth line. When Tom DeLong sings, “We’ll have the time of our lives/Though we’re dying inside”, the cheesy grin you fixed in expectation suddenly seems out of place.
Neighbourhoods is a commendable piece of work and proof that there’s life after pop punk. It may lack the punchy single-power that Blink 182 once wielded so casually but the band have made the right call between growing up and cashing in – and for that they deserve praise.