For some, Blink 182 will always be those butt-naked dudes goofing around with a hot nurse on the streets of LA. For others, it’s the sound of a Frankenstein threesome they greedily embraced in 2016 when members Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker legally separated from guitarist and vocalist Tom DeLonge, bringing in fellow indie stalwart and Alkaline Trio vocalist Matt Schiber for the first new music in five years. California (and 2019’s follow-up Nine) might’ve sated the stalwarts. Yet emo kids everywhere were still chanting “Where are you?” to the man himself.
Turns out the guitarist was a little tied up proving aliens exist, much like the song of the same name on 1999’s breakthrough record Enema Of The State. (No joke, Delonge’s To The Stars organisation was a crucial part of the historic hearings held at Congress earlier this year.) He’s not the only one who’s been through seismic changes. Hoppus announced he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in the Spring of 2021 (he later announced in September that year he was cancer-free). While Barker was singlehandedly responsible for a swathe of new chart-topping prodigies working with everyone from Willow Smith to Machine Gun Kelly. And then at the tail end of last year, the reunion every former angsty millennial teen was hoping for happened. The trio announced that they would be quite literally getting the band back together for a new record and worldwide tour.
One constant appears to be their ability to write a self-pegged “anthem”. Opener “Anthem Part 3” follows on from Take Off Your Pants and Jacket’s “Anthem Part 2”. Only this time instead of raging over the state of the planet, they’re propelled to revel in today as they sing: “This time I won’t be complacent / A new high / A new ride / And I’m on fire.” Elsewhere, “Fell In Love” dishes out “First Date”-esque pop fodder and “You Don’t Know What You Got” toys dangerously close to “Adam’s Song” sentimentality with its arpegiated chords, tender keys and Hoppus’ hushed monotone. The group continues their appreciation of inventive interludes - a trope they leaned on heavily in 2002’s self-titled. There’s a nod to former micro-number “Family Reunion” in the twenty-second tirade “Turn This Off!” and the welcome scrappy punk sounds of “You Talk Too Much!”
The second half of the record (there are seventeen new numbers for us) picks up the pace with Barker’s relentless drum rhythms in “Bad News” as the band reflects on whether there’s such a thing as a happy ending. But surely standout single and the album’s namesake are proof of that as the trio posits: “Do I have to die to hear you miss me?” It’s a cruel reckoner but it sure feels good to have them back on our stereos one more time.