blink-182 released Neighborhoods on 27 September 2011. It was their first album in eight years and their first after Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge and Travis Barker reunited in 2009.
The three members produced the record themselves, and it sounds like a band reconnecting without pretending the gap never happened. ‘Ghost On The Dance Floor’ carries Tom’s wider, atmospheric writing; ‘Heart’s All Gone’ gives Mark the sharpest punk song; ‘After Midnight’ finds the trio meeting in the middle.
‘Up All Night’ was the obvious comeback single, but the less tidy songs make Neighborhoods worth returning to. ‘Natives’, ‘Snake Charmer’ and ‘Even If She Falls’ do not chase the clean pop-punk finish of the band’s earlier records.
Fifteen years on, the album’s tension is part of its character. Neighborhoods is not the sound of blink-182 picking up where they left off. It is the sound of three musicians trying to work out what the band could be after the break.
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