This is Blink’s ninth album. We’ve bought most of them, but this will be the last; they’ve become formulaic and lost all their wit, declining over the last few albums. There is some Auto-tuned vocals too (for Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba, replaced Tom DeLonge); we’re pretty sure their younger selves would have mocked this, back in the Small Things era, whose video ridiculed boybands, such as Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync.

Obviously there’s still Travis, always worth a listen, but he could do with escaping to the Blink yoke. We think he mainly kills time until the call from Blink comes; he needs to get out more.

The typical modern Blink song is: something clever on drums from Travis, plus synth distortion to give it edge, a slower verse, Travis does a fill, crowd-pleasing chorus. Repeat.

Some of the earlier albums were flawed, it’s true, and the rude songs can wear thin but we yearn for a moment’s silliness on this. The 2003 album blink-182 was serious and great, so they can do it (and we switched Nine for that half way through writing this).

They just seem to have given up; it’s not even like the late-era Stones, whose albums at least had one good song on. Like the Stones, Blink will be touring the old material, even if the tour does carry the latest album’s name. Bottom line: makes Angels and Airwaves sound exciting. Which take some doing.

 

Support your local record shop! If you’ve not got one, support us (an independent newspaper) and buy this from here (yes we know it’s not Nine; don’t waste your money):