Nut Suite. Mini reviews of albums old and new. Minimum words. No fuss. No spoilers [?]. Occasional smugs.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

BLINK-182 / California [2016]

After losing squeaky-voiced guitarist Tom DeLonge to higher ambitions yet again, veteran pop-punkers blink-182 (vocalist/bassist Mark Hoppus & drummer extraordinaire Travis Barker) recruited Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba as a suitable replacement.
2016's California should have been a reinvention of sorts, considering the appetizing experimentation the band was dabbling in with their previous records.  However they played it safe here and produced a pretty standard blink-182 record of yesterday with the added minus of some embarrassing joke songs.  There's a small handful of great songs and potentially tasty melodic moments here but it's mostly overly-polished boredom that might have actually been a bit more interesting with some rough edges here and there.  As a return to form it's an average record but as an album that sets out to prove something it's pretty weak.  

2½ nods to home out of 5

Songs of Note: Bored to DeathShe's Out of Her Mind

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