Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 31/10/05
Label: Geffen

It's entirely possible that Blink 182's rather dispirited limping from the public stage earlier this year was provoked by the insane, all-conquering success of long term rivals Green Day and their "American Idiot" behemoth. While Blink has always actually been the musically more talented of the two outfits, and often wrote the better songs, it seemed clear that they lacked the fiery ambition and imagination that saw Billie Joe Armstrong transform his group from tiresome scatologists to scathing, if unsubtle, politicos.

A shame, since by 2003's fifth, eponymous album, Blink were similarly shedding their suburban smart arsiness in favour of something a little more sincere. It's difficult to imagine how a band who began their career mired in the juvenile punk-lite of songs like "M & Ms" could end up creating something as subtle as the brooding, minor key "Miss You". Not that the punk pop years were all a waste of time. A song like "All The Small Things" may in itself be a very small thing indeed, but so vivacious and catchy only the churlish could care, while tracks as considered as "Adam's Song", a sober look at teenage suicide, hinted at what might come.

And what came were a couple of tracks which alone make this collection worth owning. It would be easy to mock "Stay Together For The Kids" as suburban whining, were it not for the fact that Tom DeLange's whine is so HEROIC and that the drum battered chorus is so shattering. As for the thrilling squall of "Feeling This", not since Pulp had 30-something men so brilliantly caught the sweaty-palmed, heart-jolting thrill of teenage lust.

To say that Blink 182's place in pop history is tenuous would be generous, but let the Billie Joe Armstrong's of the world worry about such weighty matters. At their best this collection shows a band who were brash, fun and - occasionally - rather moving. That's more than most can boast.

    by Jaime Gill