Sometimes when two people divorce, one
of them ends up with a younger, hotter mate. Other times,
they end up with someone who could be a doppelganger for
their former mate.
When Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus broke up and left Blink
182 to form new bands, DeLonge formed Angels & Airwaves
(younger and hotter – overblown emo!) while Hoppus
started +44. Hoppus grabbed Blink 182’s drummer,
Travis Barker, and two other guys who were just happy to
be there, and essentially wrote the next Blink album.
The bounce and hooks of Blink are still there, as evidenced
by the addictive title track, but lyrically Hoppus is finally
showing his age. He took the tongue out of his cheek and
wrote a more mature album in the vein of “Adam’s
Song”. That isn’t to say it is about death,
but it is thoughtful and introspective about life and relationships. “No,
It Isn’t” shows some of his best writing to
date: “Curse my enemies forever, Let’s slit
our wrists and burn down something beautiful, This desperation
leaves me overjoyed, With fading lights that lead up past
the lives that we destroy.”
Much of the punk bounce of the album lies in the first
few tracks. After an instrumental interlude things turn
towards more of a rock sound, getting slower and borderline
depressing with the remorseful “Weatherman”.
By the time you hit the relationship-recap of “Make
You Smile” with Hoppus trading vocals with a female
playing the part of his ex.
Like most of Blink’s material you can’t help
but nod your head along to the music but +44 makes you
pause and think, something that rarely happened with the
bubblegum of Blink. This is what happens when punks grow
up, and that is not so much of a bad thing.
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