On Friday, punk rock trio blink-182 released an expanded cut of 2023’s ONE MORE TIME… titled ONE MORE TIME… PART-2.  The album and its reprise are the first to feature the band’s lineup of Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker since DeLonge’s departure in 2015.

The project doesn’t seek to innovate in any significant way from their previous work, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. One wonders if any deviation would not only be unnecessary, but take away from the band’s unique, fun and youthful tinge to their music. 

Delonge’s return to the band and the release of this expanded album harken back to the time when bands like blink-182 ruled the counterculture. This rejuvenation is apparent on “IF YOU NEVER LEFT,” a single that finds the speaker wondering about an array of possibilities if the song’s subject had stayed with him. It’s a lyrical piece that feels young, lost and angry. 

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“NO FUN,” the first of the eight new tracks, starts with an almost gospel-like intro featuring an organ before evolving into more familiar thrashing power chords and a busy Barker drum part. “No fun anymore / Everyone’s bored cause we cut off our wings,” writes the band. 

Rather than getting left behind by the times, it seems that the band knew how to avoid the pitfall that so many groups like them have succumbed to. For example, Green Day has seemed incapable of releasing anything good for the past 10 years. Blink, however, has somewhat surprisingly avoided this. The three are sharp musically and the lyrics are nostalgically immature in a similar fashion to 1999’s Enema Of The State.  

Hoppus delivers one of the best vocal performances of the album on “EVERYONE EVERYWHERE,” with a verse that features a modulated vocal harmony in a surprising touch for the band. He trades verse-chorus with DeLonge, a common tactic the band employed on hits like “I Miss You,” taking advantage of Hoppus’ voice as a complement to DeLonge’s distinctly nasal twang. 

The concluding track, “TAKE ME IN,” feels both melancholic and hopeful with a soundscape backed by Barker’s dynamic playing. The chorus explodes, “Take me in / Take me now / Take me anywhere, I’m so down.” 

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This song, and the album at large, feels like the period in the ‘90s and early 2000s where pop-punkers were at the forefront of the music scene. The question that these bands have had to answer as they age rings true for blink-182: can they keep some of their magic?

The band answers in an affirmative fashion on the deluxe album, employing the same formula that propelled them to stardom in the first place. Rapid, heavy drum beats from Barker. Thrashing power chords. Complementary vocal performances from DeLonge and Hoppus — whose voices are about as different as humanly possible. But somehow, it all works. 

Blink is old, but has proven that they have the wherewithal to create projects that feel both freshly youthful and true to the band’s classic style.