blink-182 [Enhanced] [Explicit Lyrics] [Extra tracks]

After I'd listened to the album a few more times it really grew on me and there are many outstanding tracks on the album but at the same time there are still tracks which make you want to press skip on your CD player.

The musicianship is amazing and there are lots of strange effects in almost every song with layers of guitars and one song uses 4(!) basses on the outro so there is always something new to pick up on each time you hear the album and great depth to every song. You can really tell they spent a long time on each song to make it 'perfect'.

If you are a blink fan chances are you'll buy this album anyway to make up your own mind about it, but if you are still not sure whether to get it or not, I would say buy it. You may think it's the worst thing you've heard in ages and blink are no-more (like me) but I can assure you three or four listens later you'll be hooked and realise that, whilst not the greatest blink album, it's right up there.

It's different. And not in the way that "Enema Of The State" was different from "Dude Ranch", or different in the way that "Take Off Your Pants And Jacket" was different from "Enema" (though you have to have listened to both of them relentlessly to notice how). The sound is different. It's heavier. Lots of bands have released new albums this last year and promoted them as "heavier" and/or "experimental". Few of them have lived up to that promise. This one does. Sure, it's not heavy enough to genre-shift into the Finch fold (though there were moments where it sounded like it would), nor is it experimental in the way Radiohead are supposed to be.

This isn't an album you can imagine former Blink-alikes such as Bowling For Soup or A Simple Plan ever making. Gone are the purile jokes completely, as are the songs about dating. There's not even a novelty track on here. So not only have Blink grown beyond themselves, but they've also put a distance between themselves and those bands that have sought to emulate them. There's a certain unexpected dynamism, then, that perhaps means Blink will survive when other pop punk acts fall.

So if not Blink, then what does it sound like? Well, it's still Blink. Tom DeLonge's vocals continue to grate, perhaps more now than ever, and Mark Hoppus continues to be the better singer. For some bizarre reason, The Cure's Robert Smith turns up to sing one song with them, and Val Kilmer's ex-wife Joanna Whalley reads out a letter for this album's answer to "Adam's Song".

On first listen, though, the two bands that came to mind straight away were Box Car Racer and 'A', funnily enough. Box Car Racer isn't surprising, seeing as it was Tom DeLonge's side project with the Rancid boys. It's not only the more thoughtful lyrics that have carried over from that defunct band. As for 'A', I have no idea...

Musically, it's not breaking any new ground. However, it's still interesting. It's very much a studio album, evident in the use of a flange effect on drums and overdubbed vocals. Not very punk rock, but I don't think they're claiming to be anymore. I liked the regular use of keyboards, and the increased distortion on the guitars stopped the perpetual chirpy pop feel that has defined the previous two albums.

Whether all that's going to sit well with the rest of their fans is another matter, though.