Friday 19 August 2011

Blink-182 - Neighborhoods tracklisting and Heart's All Gone

  About last week, or something, pop punk's finest, Blink-182 did some more to anticipate fans for their sixth album Neighborhoods released on the 27th of September via Interscope, by revealing the album's tracklisting. The tracklisting continues to show Blink's more mature evolution, with more sophisticated titles than the likes of Dick Lips and Does My Breath Smell from their early releases throughout the '90's. Here's evidence of the evolution in this respect. The tracklisting for Neighborhoods is as follows:

Ghost on the Dance Floor
A La Mode
This Is Home
Snake Charmer
MH 4.18.2011
Even If She Falls
You Too
After Midnight
Natives

The deluxe edition of the album contains three extra tracks, being:

Kaleidoscope
Fighting the Gravity
Heart's All Gone

 Now, I'm still unaware of what each song will be like. Can we make judgements based on titles alone? Why not? One thing that comes to mind is that This Is Home sounds like a good name for a ballad like song, perhaps it will be similar to 2003's I'm Lost Without You. I hope not, I'll be honest. That song is very much a drag. MH 4.18.2011 sounds like the name for some obscure interlude. The type of thing laden with keyboards and synthesizers while Travis Barker has a crazed drum solo. Other than that I imagine neighborhoods will be a show of spiky punk riffs with fresh experimental digital effects.
 Now, I know what a lot are thinking. Looking at the tracklisting for the regular version of the album, many have had one common complaint. They've been working on the album for three years and there's only ten tracks. Understandable, I suppose. Perhaps Neighborhoods will be a case of quality over quantity, as I said in a previous and much angrier post, I stated that Blink had to make this generations Back in Black to make up for all the screwing around they had previously been doing about their album release. Well, Back in Black had ten tracks, so perhaps things for Neighborhoods will work in the same way.
 Anyway, another complaint is that the deluxe version is likely to be much more expensive and something that could be argued is that the band have made a clever move that many would look on with spite and say "Oh, you clever bastards!" And that is to anticipate fans for the albums release by giving fans the chance to hear a new track from the album. And it's a bonus track.

 Hearts All Gone is a much more serious and mature track speaking of the issue of betrayal and letdown. ("Hopeless and destitute/ Destroyed my gratitude/ Your strongest lines of defense/ are just all just self-inflicted wounds") In spite of this, the track has less of the musical style of their other more serious work and is more like the part-serious, part-jokey Take off Your Pants and Jacket, with it's speedy pace and relentless heavy punk sound, which takes away from the poppier element of the band. Another thing that could be said is that if the previous release Up All Night was argued to be too similar to the work in Tom DeLonge's other group Angels and Airwaves, then this song, with it's dirty punk riffs and frantic drum work is similar to Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker's former side project, +44. Surprisingly, Heart's All Gone is a really genuine and well played punk song that bites and the fact that Blink-182 are still capable of this is unexpected and for now, reassuring.
 

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