Review Summary: "...an album that, in the decade since it was first released, has become a bit of a touchstone — a defining moment not just for the band, but for the genre of punk, in all its permutations."
I'm not even sure I can accurately put into words the sheer beauty this album possesses. It's not too common for albums to be appreciable. It's even rarer for albums to be exceptional. But rarest of all is the album that actually toys with your emotions; one that grabs your heart from the very get-go and sucks you into its very being. An album that, for its duration, doesn't make you feel like you're listening to it, but makes you feel like you're
living it. An album in which every track is so glorious, so inspiring that you want to spoil your fingers away pressing the repeat button at the end of every single one, but you're so enthralled, so gripped by the anticipation of what's next, that when the songs have coursed through you, and the album comes to a close, all you feel is an empty album-shaped hole somewhere inside you; like a friend has just departed, never to see again. It's an emotional roller-coaster, one hell of a ride, and "blink-182" is just one of those albums.
And little would you expect the ride that awaits you, too, having been greeted with the opener
Feeling This. "blink-182? Meh, power chord abuse, sex jokes?" you may have said. And then the album begins, and for what's supposed to be the song most like their previous albums, you can already sense the remarkable shift in direction they've taken with this release. As flanged guitars open up the album, you realise: blink-182 have widened their scope. Things are still unquestionably punk: Mark's and Tom's shouted vocals in tandem, the high-energy pace of the track brought out by the instruments. But the tracks are darker, more serious, more experimental. What catches your eye immediately is the new-found maturity in the lyrics. Tom yelps about sex in the first half of the song, but as Mark sings lines like "
I think I'm fallin' asleep / But then all that it means is / I'll always be dreaming of you" you do have to start wondering if it's the same band after all.
And as the album goes on, you realise that was just the beginning of the landmark change. The experimentation goes wild from here on, with the heavy (by punk standards) riffs of
Obvious, the piano of the mellow
Down and
I'm Lost Without You, the six-string bass of the downbeat
I Miss You, the minimalistic strangeness of
Violence, and the unexpected jazz of
The Fallen Interlude. Nevertheless, however, the principal underlying element beneath all this experimentation and newfound maturity remains the trademark Blink catchiness and punk energy; they may have grown up and thrown around weird instruments, but the main strength in this album remains that they have managed to twist their newfound experimentation and maturity to still create the catchiness of their past. Stranger tracks like
Violence still keeps your toes tapping with an innovative drumbeat, and straight-out punk songs like
Go and
Obvious still exist.
Given the multiple chances of disaster entailed in experimentation, it's pretty spectacular how well the album turned out. For a punk band, convincingly pulling off sorrowful acoustic numbers like the Robert Smith collaboration
All of This and
I Miss You is a pretty big feat; pulling off "that '80s vibe" complete with synth keyboard, as seen on
Always equally impressive.
Perhaps what's so amazing, so... scintillating, even, is the masterful way which blink-182 manage to twist their simple power chords and bass lines into such a stunning, emotionally appealing work. It certainly isn't due to any real improvement in the band members' instrumental skills; an astounding 4 tracks share the
exact same chord progression (I Miss You, Violence, Down, I'm Lost Without You), for instance. Perhaps the serious lyrics, together with all so many musical changes (darker, more experimental) managed to convince us that blink-182 was earnest with their new direction, allowing us to realize we were willing to listen to them, and join in the emotions they were conveying to us through their music. It can't be just me who feels a sudden pang of emptiness, of loneliness, when listening to
Asthenia, a song about an astronaut alone in space unconfident of returning home (yeah, quite a change from peeking into naked girls' homes, eh), and hearing Tom sing "
I hope I won't forget you". It can't be just me who shares the singers' tension when they sing "
Afraid of the dark, do you hear me whisper? / An empty heart replaced with paranoia" in
Stockholm Syndrome. By the end of it all, you feel you've completed a journey; you've felt what blink-182's dictated you to feel, through the sublime emotion brought out by the downbeat strength of their songs. By the time the melancholy piano and effect-laden guitar of
I'm Lost Without You begin closing out the album over Tom's sorrowful voice, you realize your journey has come to an end; you feel a bit lost without the album. Your best friend of the last 49 minutes says goodbye, and you became conscious of how you pressed the play button expecting a somewhat alright album, and withdrew the CD, blessed with... a classic.
