Blink 182 - California

(Words by Burra)

Ok, so I'll state the obvious, but there may be a lot of people who may not realise founding member Tom DeLonge is no longer a part of the group. Anyway... this is Blink 182's first record with their revised lineup, featuring Mat Skiba who most of you will recognise as frontman of Alkaline Trio.

A nice opener to this album comes with the track "Cynical", which might I add has a really lovely bass guitar-driven sound to it, leaning back to maybe a sound we haven't heard since perhaps the Carousel era. This type of sound can be heard a lot more throughout the album, and often there is warm chord-based playing in places. "Bored To Death" is a really strong track and I think the perfect choice of main single from the album, which shows off their new look and fresh sound nicely; showcasing both the vocals of Skiba and Hoppus together. 

Two personal highlights that stand out from this album for me are "Left Alone", from which I really love the vocals, and also "San Diego"; both tracks being the album's kind-of ballads. I also really like the track "No Future", which has some really nice input from Skiba where the song dips into very Alkaline Trio-esque sounds, especially when his vocals come in and really push the track to another dimension. This is probably a favourite bit from the whole album.

Overall though, I'd say this sounds a lot closer to Blink 182's original sound than that of the last releases few from the band; especially the Dogs Eating Dogs EP, which was quite a dramatically different sound than what we were used to from Blink. There is a strong set of tracks here though; the only weak points and my only criticism being the little filler tracks "Built This Pool", which I feel could have easily been left out as it doesn't really fit with the vibe of the rest of the stuff here, and "Brohemian Rhapsody", which again is just a quick bit of filler in an album that doesn't necessarily require any. 

I can imagine however that there are lot of fans still unsure what to think of this album - or perhaps quite divided over it - maybe even a little bitter still at the departure of DeLonge. It still takes some getting used to myself; however I do think they made the right choice in who they've chosen to replace DeLonge - there's no question of that, and it makes for a great album nonetheless.

Wormrot / I Abhor - Split 7"

I Abhor are a weird mixture of sounds. Slow, dissonant riffs lead into unbelievably fast blasting grind; the drumming really is something you must all hear! The vocals are distorted and hellish a la the sound used on earlier Pig Destroyer records, only not as high; the singer utilizes mainly lows in his delivery. I Abhor are kinda similar to Wormrot in a way; they both peddle the same grinding mix of excellent riffing and flat out blasting.

 

Wormrot on side B contribute 8 (yes!) tracks to the 7". Opener "Twelve" is bloody hilarious, before "Critical Human Stupidity" blows your fucking head off like it was nobody's business. The production here betrays to me that these songs are from the same sessions as the Abuse album, or at least that's what it sounds like to me! 

 

For a grindcore band, Wormrot haven't really done that many splits, which is odd (but great for me as I have literally everything they have released, barring the odd demo tape or two). Anyways this 7" was put out by Fat Ass Records in Poland and is truly excellent as fuck. I recommend!