Album Review: Blink-182 - NINE

Let’s be honest, blink-182 without Tom DeLonge just isn’t cutting it. Nine is a +44 album – you know, that Barker and Hoppus band that released When Your Heart Stops Beating in 2006? A band with one song that quickly faded from people’s minds so they began covering blink songs on tour instead? Nine sounds as if it should be +44’s comeback, but instead it's a blink-182 record. Aligning it with Dude Ranch and Enema Of The State is a bold move, to say the least.

We went in with an open mind as their former record California, also without DeLonge, was decent. Alas, we came out scratching our heads. You’d be forgiven to think Blame It On My Youth was a 5 Seconds Of Summer song, no discredit to them. It’s just the emo-pop sound isn’t hitting the mark here and, at 47, can Hoppus really sing a song called On Some Emo Shit and not expect us to wince?

We want to find the good in this record, but it’s tough - we heard all these songs 15 years ago on a Simple Plan record. Track nine would have absolutely banged as our MSN bio, 'I rEalLy WIsH I HateD yOu </3'.  We wish we could go back to that time too, but we can’t, and it’s time to move on with our lives.