Album Review: Blink-182 – “One More Time…”

Columbia Records – 20 OCT 2023

Despite producing some of the best songs in Blink’s catalogue, One More Time… suffers from emotional burnout.

The Mark, Tom, and Travis show has been a rollercoaster these past few decades, from the band splitting down the middle into Angels & Airwaves and +44 as Mark Hoppus put out a song about how much he hated Tom DeLonge (on DeLonge’s birthday), to Travis Barker’s near-death in a plane crash which led to the first band reunion and Neighborhoods, to the subsequent second departure of DeLonge and his replacement with Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio. Throughout all the tumult, though, the band kept producing quality material. Really, the last mediocre Blink-182 record was the self-titled album 20 years ago. Neighborhoods and the subsequent EP Dogs Eating Dogs were both excellent. And while I’ve been very vocal about saying that Blink-182 is the collaboration of Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus and any band without both of them shouldn’t bear that band name, the Matt Skiba era—or, as I like to call it, Blink-183—actually produced two high quality albums. Still, everyone—probably even Matt Skiba if he’s being honest—wanted to see DeLonge return to the band and reunite the core lineup for, as the title suggests, at least one more time.

One More Time… is very much an autobiographical album that tackles the band’s personal issues head on in a frank and open way. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the title track, released as one of the album’s early singles, where Hoppus* sings “It shouldn’t take a sickness or planes falling out the sky,” directly referencing his two bandmates’ near-death experiences that sparked both of the band’s reunions and taking accountability for his own shortcomings in his friendships with them. “One More Time” is the band’s most brutally honest song in their entire history. Similarly “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got” tackles Hoppus’ recent cancer diagnosis head-on in a startlingly honest way and, even if the chorus and title are a cliché, the song’s verses are heartbreakingly familiar to anyone with a personal relationship to cancer. These are not only two of the best songs on the album, they rank amongst the absolute best of the band’s entire catalogue.

And if it was just a song or two reflecting on the band’s history and highly publicized issues, that would be great. But the themes of “One More Time” (the song) get repeated throughout the album, which gets a little repetitive on the band’s longest album in terms of song count, and third longest in terms of overall length. Furthermore, while Blink’s talent for emotionally heavy pop songs is on display in full force here, their talent for straightforward punk songs is largely squandered outside of the Travis Barker-fronted “Fuck Face,” which clocks in at less than 30 seconds in length. And, as touching as these songs are, there’s an emotional burnout when every song is tugging on the heartstrings in much the same way. There was a time when Blink-182 was known for their frat-boy humor and a heart-wrencher like “Adam’s Song” was a novel rarity. On One More Time…, almost every song is an “Adam’s Song,” and that’s a bit much to stomach.

There’s a few perfunctory nods to their more juvenile antics from their early days that feel half-hearted and phoned in, but perhaps expanding on those could have given a much-needed respite from the some of the album’s emotional weight. Even a song like “Turpentine”—which, early on, promises to maybe become a bit lighter in content with the opening lines “Soaked your clothes in kerosene/Cleanse the mind of ketamine/Slide your mom on top of me”—finds that promise to be short-lived as the song, again, becomes a big, emo anthem with a few awkwardly-inserted sophomoric jokes that don’t quite fit. First single “Edging” is one of the very few moments of real silly fun that actually succeeds on this album, with its swinging rhythm and devil-may-care attitude giving much needed relief from the seriousness of the rest of the record.

The title of the album is, thankfully, One More Time… and not One Last Time…, leaving the door open for, hopefully, a future for the reunited core lineup. Fans have been overjoyed that Hoppus announced he was cancer free in 2021, especially considering that he did not have an easy type of cancer to come back from. That reminder of mortality should not be forgotten as quickly as it was after Neighborhoods. Hopefully, this is a new beginning for the now 31-year-old band; hopefully they aren’t hit with another horrific tragedy; and hopefully DeLonge doesn’t, again, wander off in search of aliens.

One More Time… Linktree (multiple purchase and streaming options, and more)

*The review originally noted Delonge as singing this line.