Music Banter - Review of Blink-182's "Neighborhoods"

I don't know about you guys, but when Mark Hoppus (the bassist) announced this album was coming out, I was super excited. Blink-182 has been one of my favorite bands for as long as I can remember, and they hadn't come out with any new material since "Blink-182" in 2003. The release and listen of the first single "Up All Night" definitely piqued my interest, I liked the colloborative sharing of vocals that Tom Delonge and Hoppus used, although I felt it had a little bit of that Angels & Airwaves feel to it, which I didn't want on this album.

I went out and picked up the deluxe edition the day the full album came out, and listened to it all the way through on the car ride back home. Honestly, I'm not going to lie, I was a tad disappointed. Mostly because I felt like it was more of an Angels & Airwaves album than a Blink one. They have definitely moved on from the pop punk sound of "Enema of the State" and "Take Off Your Pants and Jacket". Rightfully so, as they aren't 23 years old anymore. Another thing that I noticed which also happened in the album "Blink-182" was that DeLonge has a much greater share of vocals than Hoppus.

Overall it gets an average 7/10 from me, nowhere near as good as some of their earlier releases. I liked Travis's beats as usual, it was a pretty decent release. Tom definitely hogged too many of the vocals, I wanted to hear more of Mark singing, as I prefer his vocals over Tom's. Not sure that I totally like the new sound of the band, but I'll stick with them until they finally call it quits.