DETROIT – Blink-182 saved the best of "Nine" for the album release.
The band released several singles off the new album this year, but they didn't do justice to the rest of the record, which dropped Friday.
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To be completely honest, none of the songs I heard prior to the album's release really struck me as anything spectacular, but "Nine" as a whole is a different story.
The 15-song album is an energetic, emotional roller coaster that will have you bobbing your head while feeling twinges of heartbreak.
For instance, the moody, melodramatic "Remember to Forget Me" exemplifies this perfectly.
Mark Hoppus opens the track with a slow, emotional intro, but the track speeds up, incorporating faster pace guitar and drums, as well as an EDM/hip-hop vibe that Hoppus and Matt Skiba sing over.
"You left pieces of me along the side of the road / Right after you said you'd never leave me alone / Found myself on the wrong side of the door / I'll come in if you let me."
That EDM and hip-hop vibe is something that appears in several other tracks. The album sounds more like classic Blink than 2016's "California" but with a new twist. It's kind of like a more mature take on early 2000s Blink-182 mixed with hip-hop undertones.
At certain moments, "Nine" is reminiscent of Blink's self-titled album, released in 2003, and 2001's "Take Off Your Pants and Jacket."
Lyrically, the songs are angsty and basically, all of them revolve around navigating a breakup, moving on and letting go – or just how hard it is to do so.
"They say forgive and forget / As long as I live, I'll let / These feelings pound in my chest / Maybe I am better off dead."
It's a theme that could get tiring or old fast, especially when the songs never really stray from lines about a broken heart or pain, but the band makes it work.
"Lying on the bedroom floor / Hanging on the words that you said before / No heart, no heart to speak of / Dying on the bathroom floor / Thinking of the life that we had before."
Blink managed to make an album full of feelings, pain and darker moments without releasing something that isn't inherently dark or depressing.
One thing the album does lack compared to other Blink-182 records is humor. While previous records have often incorporated at least a few songs that have humorous lyrics (see: "What's My Age Again"), the lyrics on "Nine" are pretty set on one particular feeling -- sadness.
If you want to jam to something that makes you feel, give "Nine" a listen.