Saturday, August 24, 2013

Blink-182 - Neighborhoods: A Guest Blog by Andy

Good evening lovers of reliable pop-punk music, I have something special for you today, a premiere: There are a few bands out there I have absolutely no connection to, for example blink-182. However, that's no problem at all because Andy, a friend of mine, is a huge fan of them with a whole lot of knowledge about this genre in general, so he sat down to write about Neighborhoods, one of the albums by blink-182. Enjoy!



Back in 2011, my absolute musical highlight of the year was the new album by my favorite band blink-182. I had been waiting for this record for years, so I was close to tears when I finally held it in my hands. Called "Neighborhoods“, the album was the first material in 8 years, and many people were wondering what style the album would be. Although the 3 gentlemen are known for their amazing pop-punk songs like “Dammit“, “All the small things“ and “Whats my age again?“ (the song which belongs to the video where they are running around naked), the self-titled album in 2003 was already showing a different, darker side of blink-182. So it was pretty obvious that Tom Delonge, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker would not go back to writing fun songs about dating girls, parties and sex with dogs.

“Ghost on the dancefloor“ opens the album quite sad and slowly, it's a song about a lost love. You can clearly hear the “Angels and Airwaves“ influence on that song, Tom Delonge added a lot of effects and synthesized parts. The second song, “Natives“, is quite the opposite of the first one. Really fast and with an amazing guitar intro, the song reminds of Mark Hoppus side project “+44“. The next two songs, “Up all night“ and “After midnight“ have very strong and solid riffs, but they also can't hide their influence by the past side projects of blink-182.
“Hearts All Gone“, written by Hoppus and Barker, could easily be on the bands second LP “Dude Ranch“, the punk song is incredible fast and Travis' Drums nearly beat the sh*t out of you.
“Wishing Well“ and especially “Kaleidoscope“ belong to the better songs of the record. While “Wishing Well“ has some of the old blink-182 spirit in it, “Kaleidoscope“ impresses with a strong guitar riff, amazing drums and great lyrics, which makes it to my favorite song of the album.

All in all “Neighborhoods“ is an awesome album but it can't keep up with their previous albums because those are just masterpieces. “Neighborhoods“ is a very serious and dark comeback and in most songs you can hear influences by Tom Delonges side projects “Box Car Racer“ and “Angels and Airwaves“. In particular this means both strong riffs and many synthesizers.
People who buy the album because they hope for funny pop punk songs will be disapointed. This is a much more mature blink, it's like blink 2.0. If you allow a band to mature and you like open alternative-songs, buy this album !

Rating: 7/10

Songs for listening: Up All Night, After Midnight, Kaleidoscope

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