Review Summary: Blink 182 fails to make a lasting impression for anything other than passive listening...
John Feldmann is a bad producer, every single thing he touches, he leaves his fingerprints on. Every band John produces is overly clean, compressed, and auto-tuned to hell and back. So, when Blink 182 announced that John Feldmann would be producing California, the long-awaited Blink 182 comeback album. Everyone was curious about what it would sound like.
"Bored to Death" was the first single dropped for California and although it sounded like a b - side to Adam's Song. It was decent and showed great promise. However, if I told you nearly every damn song sounded almost exactly like "Bored To Death" in one way or the other you would think I was joking ... I assure you. I am not.
Now, let's be honest, Blink 182 was at the most experimental and talented stage of their career when they became an Alternative Rock band and had Robert Smith on their album. Anticipating anything like that was probably stupid on my part, but Jesus Christ, you have Matt Skiba! Yet, somehow... most of the guitar just sounds like recycled guitar riffs from Enema and TOYPAJ. WHY!
Mark sounds tired and old...Is this why they had to autotune the hell out his voice...Probably.
Imagine if your dad's old high school band came out of retirement and they wrote an album full of semi-serious and somewhat angsty, love-ridden songs. Yet, on the same album made dick jokes like they're still 17, "It's a long way back from 17." What the *** does this even mean Mark... You're 40... Tom left... Get the hell over it... Jesus Christ...
But NOTHING and I mean NOTHING compares to the worst song on the album "She's Out of Her Mind" Which references the band Bauhaus and reminds me I could be listening to far better music than this, but alas, here we all are. God forbid I mention "Home Is Such a Lonely Place" where Mark laments his children going off to college and whatnot. Now, as terrible as this song is, the idea for it lyrically is actually fairly mature and shows growth yet...They would rather write about how great Los Angelas is or talk about how hard love is...
It's a shame how badly this album turned out, at best it's okay, and at worst it tries way too hard to sound like old Blink 182. If you are in the mood for Blink...Please skip this and just listen to the Self Titled album... It's not worth the headache.
