ONE MORE TIME… is Blink-182’s ninth studio album. It also marks a pivotal time for the band since it’s the first time in as many years they have released music as the original lineup: lead vocalist Mark Hoppus, guitarist Tom DeLonge, and drummer Travis Barker.
If you ask DeLonge, he’ll tell you that he believes that this album is the best music the group has released since their debut, and I’m not disagreeing. I personally love that this album felt like a journey, and incorporated what the band has been through, along with paying homage to other bands and artists out there that have deeply inspired their music. I always love the storytelling aspect of an album and this project did just that through the songs and the accompanying visuals. For example, “ONE MORE TIME” hints at the shared stories between the three band members and how the rigors of life made them put aside their differences to perform together once more.
“Do I have to die to hear you miss me?” DeLonge asks in the pop-punk ballad, “Do I have to die to hear you say goodbye? / I don’t want to act like there’s tomorrow / I don’t want to wait to do this one more time.” This especially hits home because we know Delonge returned after he learned Hoppus received a cancer diagnosis. So no more “from strangers into brothers / From brothers into strangers.”
The album was promoted with six singles, one arriving as early as October 14, 2022, and others arriving every week prior to the release of the album on October 20. With 17 tracks, it also serves as the band’s longest album to date.
Apart from the lyrical content of this album focusing on their lives through the years and how they have evolved as a band and as friends, some of the songs also included the type of crude humor that the band has come to be associated with over the years.
Kicking off the album with the deeply emotional single, “ANTHEM PART 3,” DeLonge and Hoppus sing about not giving up on one’s dreams, despite the trials and wasted years. “When your head is hanging too low / When your heart is ’bout to explode / You can make it anywhere, go / There’s no fear when you get here, give up that ghost,” DeLonge sings in the first verse before Hoppus joins in on the chorus to tell listeners that they’ve not got much to lose as long as they’re following their dreams.
The following track “DANCE WITH ME” feels like a proper introduction to the album’s pop-punk nature, as the band sings about having a proper good time with a lover, who’s not afraid to shake her hips.
The album closes out with “CHILDHOOD,” a song that beckons to a time when “we thought we knew everything.” Travis called this one of his GOAT-Blink songs and reportedly made “35 bounces” of the song before he considered it to be perfect.
I have to confess that before diving into the album, I cheated a bit by reading other reviews by other music critics. There’s a lot to appreciate about this album other than the punk-rock energy or the wailing. For example, the lyricism is topnotch and yet I didn’t see enough praise for it.
While the energy of the album may be lost at times, the storytelling really made this their best work in a long time. And this line, “You’ll despair the wreckage and find / No one gave a fuck that you died” made me wail. All in all, it was a good journey and I can’t complain.