Review Summary: Cheshire Cat is a fun and catchy release with memorable lyrics, great guitar work, good bass work and solid drumming. It is an album that deserves to be heard by any pop-punk fan.
After listening to
California I decided to go back to Blink-182’s debut album too see how much they changed over the years.
Cheshire Cat is one of the two albums, not counting
Buddha, to feature the “original” lineup: Tom, Mark and Scott. The album is definitely their fastest and most punk sounding album in comparison to their later work.
Cheshire Cat is actually a really fun and charming Blink-182 album that’s way better than I first expected.
The boys were still very young here and that really shines through in the music. This is an entirely different record than, for example, the untitled album. There aren’t any deep lyrics and there are no signs of experimentation. It’s mostly quick, fun and dumb. Even though there aren’t any deep lyrics on the album, there are still some memorable ones. "Carousel" actually has some great lyrics about Tom being kicked out of school and wanting to go back. Songs like "Ben Wah Balls" and "Depends" are absolutely ridiculous, but amazing at the same time. The most memorable lyric on the album is :
your words are kind, the kind that repeatedly say no out of the song "Romeo and Rebecca". Not to say that all the lyrics on the album are great though. "M+M’s" mostly consists of the clichéd lyrics everyone’s already heard, with only a few memorable lines.
Musically this album is a lot better. It is technically Blink-182’s best album. Tom shows of some of his best guitar work and Mark’s bass playing is only rivaled on their sophomore album,
Dude Ranch. Scott’s drumming isn’t the best, but it’s quick and it does the job perfectly. Scott mostly follows the standard punk drumming formula, consisting of a lot of speed and a quick fill every ones in a while. The guitar playing really shines on songs like "M+M’s", "Sometimes" and "Touchdown Boy". The guitar riff of the former ranks among the better Blink-182 riffs. The latter has an amazing guitar intro that brings a smile to my face every time I hear it. Mark’s bass playing shines the most on the opening track "Carousel". "Carousel" has the best bass intro of their entire career and is actually still super solid compared to other punk bands.
However, the album is not without its fair share of flaws. This album probably has some of Blink’s worst songs on it. Even though most of the joke songs on the album are pretty good, "Just About Done" really isn’t. The song just consists of Tom and Mark making random noises and saying
Just about done with your butt, we’ll let you know. "Strings" is another song that simply isn’t as good as the rest. The song has a weak chorus, clichéd lyrics and the most uninspired instrumental on the entire record. The singing on the album can throw people off, but after a while it starts to become less and less annoying. It’s still a weak point of the album and luckily has improved a lot on their following releases.
Cheshire Cat is a really solid piece of pop-punk. It’s Blink-182’s most punk sounding album with almost all tracks closing in at around 2 to 3 minutes and barely any slow tracks. The album is filled with dumb and fun lyrics, catchy choruses and solid instrumentation. There is some filler and the vocals are mostly switching between mediocre and terrible, but this is still a really strong debut album from a band that would change the face of pop-punk forever.
