Despite the subtitle of their early hit “Damnit,” Blink-182 have never been interested in “Growing Up.” Since their inception in the early ’90s, they’ve always emerged with joyous irreverence, with dozens of songs that are frozen in adolescence. This is a band who went on the “PooPoo PeePee Tour” in 1998, who posed nude in the music video for their most popular song, who often sang of fingers in butts and profanities amidst lines about feeling disillusioned and misunderstood. Even in their later years sans founding guitarist Tom DeLonge, Blink-182 still committed to living in Neverland.
On the title track of ONE MORE TIME…, their ninth album and first with DeLonge since 2011’s lackluster comeback effort Neighborhoods, Blink-182 begin to reckon with their age, with death, and with Blink-182. “I wish they told us/ It shouldn’t take a sickness/ Or airplanes falling out the sky,” proclaims Mark Hoppus, referencing both his recent cancer diagnosis and Travis Barker’s horrific plane accident. “One More Time” may be sappy (“Do I have to die to hear you miss me?,” DeLonge questions in the chorus), but it doesn’t feel obligatory or performative. It’s interesting enough for the band to be writing songs about being in the band instead of half-hearted youthful anguish.
So, after years of interpersonal tension and near-death experiences, ONE MORE TIME… arrives as a love letter to each other and to life. It’s also a reaction to the 12 years since Neighborhoods; in addition to Hoppus’ cancer diagnosis and subsequent recovery in 2021, Tom DeLonge left Blink-182, continued fronting his other band Angels & Airwaves, and devoted a great deal of energy to research on aliens and UFOs. Travis Barker blossomed into a prolific producer and songwriter for both hip-hop and pop-punk’s newest class and is now married to a Kardashian. Meanwhile, Hoppus and Barker recruited The Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba to take DeLonge’s place for two (relatively weak) albums and hundreds of shows. That’s a lot of lived experience, but there was no guarantee they’d draw on it.
So much of Blink-182’s recent output has avoided the acknowledgment of their age. This time, however, they seem less interested in embracing themes of adolescence and eternal boyhood, and more interested in what a reunited Blink-182 sounds like as aging rock stars on the other side of oblivion.
Several of ONE MORE TIME…‘s songs revolve around the members’ personal histories — the near-death experiences, brotherhood, the trio’s slightly disparate musical interests, and above all, gratitude. They’re still occasionally profane and deeply silly, but the meat of the album is much more concerned with sincerity. The album’s title may suggest this is Blink-182’s swan song, but it’s more of a way for them to start over fresh — they might not get tomorrow, after all.
Blink-182 also dig back into the well of what’s worked for them in the past, both individually and as a group. Much of the album evokes their lauded 2003 self-titled LP — a major turning point for the band — in both sonics and lyrical content; the DeLonge-led “Terrified” and “Turpentine” recall songs like “Violence” and “Always,” with their loose-fitting structures and anxiety-ridden lyrics. “Terrified” in particular is a gem, and one of the best Blink songs in recent memory — there’s a trace of DeLonge and Barker’s hardcore-leaning side project Box Car Racer in the song’s blistering guitars and slightly menacing chorus, while also channeling the anthemic aspects of DeLonge’s work in Angles & Airwaves.