Dan vs California (by Dan Peters)

My Review that’s not a Review of Blink-182: California.

Honestly I tried so hard. I really did. But not once have I had the energy to get all the way through the thing. Instead, because I want to get on with listening to the new Guttermouth EP some more, here are a selection of thoughts I have on the album:

• Cynical is my favourite and least favourite Blink song of all time. Favourite because it’s a fantastic back to form fun, fast enjoyable song. Least favourite because it’s like a spit in the face to me. A “look what we could have done but instead this will finish in 1:40 and then you have to listen to Bored To Death”.
• Bored To Death is the worst.
• The song after… (checks album track listing) She’s Out Of Her Mind is also fun, Then Los Angeles is not - are they deliberately doing it?
• Say what you will about Tom, at least he was distinctive, I honestly struggle to guess where Matt and Mark switch over with all that autotune of the vocals.
• Speaking of Los Angeles, why have you got so many songs named after towns? It just makes me not remember which one is which.
• Built This Pool is another kick in the face. “Hey” Mark says with a huge grin, “Remember when this band had a wicked sense of humour?”. “No” says the Record Exec, “Get on with songs called No Future instead”.
• Rabbit Hole is cool. I really, really like Rabbit Hole. If that was the second track on the album I probably would have been won over enough that I would have forgiven all the boring forgettable stuff.
• I heard many people say something good about Brohemian Rhapsody but I never got around to listening to it and I’m not motivated enough to care to do it now.
• I put this on for a full week every day and I can’t sing the choruses to any of the tracks except Out of Her Mind and Rabbit Hole.

Look I’m being mean, and you may of course take this whole thing with a huge pinch of salt but here’s my honest opinion in the conclusion. Blink had enough material for an incredible EP here but there just seems like so much filler that it dilutes good stuff. It’s not that bad, but there’s so much out there more worth your time/money/attention.