Blink-182 releases their much anticipated album

Cassie Rossel

The boys of Blink-182 are finally giving worldwide fans what they’ve been begging for with the release of their sixth studio album, Neighborhoods, on Sept. 27.

A new record seemed nearly impossible since Blink-182 announced that they would be taking an “indefinite hiatus” in 2005.

After the split, each member of the band went on to do their own projects, which further led fans to believe that Blink-182 was really over.

Travis Barker and Mark Hoppus formed the band +44, while Tom DeLonge formed the band Angels and Airwaves. Barker also made a solo record along with several side projects.

The incident that brought the band together once again was Barker’s near death experience three years ago. DJ Adam Goldstein and Barker were the only survivors of a flaming Learjet 60 crash site in South Carolina.

After the terrifying crash, the three longtime friends began to come into contact once again.

At the 51st Grammy Awards in 2009, Blink-182 fans were astonished when the band announced that they were reuniting.

“We used to play music together, and we decided that we are going to play music together again,” Barker said at the award show.

Henceforth the creation of Neighborhoods, which is Blink’s first full-length album in eight years.

Neighborhoods plays out 14 new songs including the first single, “Up All Night,” which is a decent foreshadowing of the 13 other tracks on the record.

The album opens up with “Ghost On The Dance Floor,” which is very reminiscent of DeLonge’s stay with Angels and Airwaves .

The song starts off with a classic Blink-182 fast pace drumbeat, but then synthesizers and abstract noises take over the track as DeLonge comes in on the vocals.

Fortunately, it is safe to say that most of the album does not go along with the Angels and Airwaves theme that “Ghost On The Dance Floor” took on.

The next song, “Natives,” stays true to the band’s original sound and will unknowingly bring you back to Blink’s Enema of the State days.

Besides “Natives,” a couple other tracks will leave the “old stuff” Blink-182 fans more than satisfied. “After Midnight,” “Kaleidoscope,” and the uniquely titled “MH 4.18. 2011,” all have the pre-millennium Blink sound to them.

Other songs on the album have a whole new sound altogether, and it honestly cannot be compared to anything else that the band has done before. This is most likely due to the change in maturity level of the band members.

Today, all three members of the band have their own families, and they all seem to have changed gears from their fast pace lives to focus on subjects of more importance.

Neighborhoods showcases the band’s change of mentality through its lyrics. Nowhere on the record will you find lyrics about first dates, rock shows, or Josie.

To say that Neighborhoods is a classic Blink-182 record would be wrong because the band has grown up and evolved since the release of their first album. It is invertible that the boys of the Mark, Tom, and Travis Show would eventually become men.

Overall, Neighborhoods will not be a complete disappointment to the fans of pre-millennium Blink-182, but it is safe to say that it will not be difficult to absorb the musicality of their new sound found on the record.

Whether we like it or not, when Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge, and Travis Barker get together to make music, it’s Blink-182. Their evolution in sound is something that is bound to happen with every band, and it should be respected.

The eight years of waiting was well worth it, and it looks like Blink-182 is back. For good.

**** out of five stars for the new album.

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