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Neighborhoods Review Thread


iSimon

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I've only listened to about half of the album and I can tell that the album really lacks any kind of directions which comes from the fact that the album was not writing together but rather fractured pieces and they produced it themselves. 

I feel like self-producing is a pitfall many bands think they can do and they tend to be all over the place.  I know that Jerry Finn passed away and may have felt strange getting a new one but that's basically what the albums lacks is that there is no structure to it.

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I've listened about 5 times this is what I think.

1. Ghost On The Dancefloor 9.5/10

Thought this was going to be my favourite song on the record.  Comes in a very close second.  The track kind of feels empty though and I wish they beefed it up a bit more.  Tom's vocals kill though and love Travis' drumming on this one.  Great album opener.

2. Natives 9/10

Love this track also.  Totally has a Young London feel to it.  Love the alternating style during the verses.  Tom's vocals kill it and I love Mark's vocals on the choruses.  Overall a great blink track.

3. Up All Night 7/10

Wasn't a huge fan from the beginning.  It does sound better in an album situation though.

4. After Midnight 8.5/10

Wasn't that big of a fan of it when I saw the live videos.  Turned out to be one of my favourite songs on the record.  Really just flows well.

5. Snake Charmer 8/10

Funky bass line and Tom's vocals/lyrics are amazing.  Verses are epic sounding.

6. Heart's All Gone Interlude 9.5/10

Even though it's an interlude track this is one of my favorites.  Love how the Hearts All Gone melody slowly builds up.  Totally didn't expect something like this from blink and reminds me of the stuff Bring Me The Horizon did on their last album that I was a big fan of.

7. Heart's All Gone 8.5/10

Love the fast pace of this track and how it seems like it could fit in the older blink records.  Really disappointing they didn't record it like they played it live though with the alternating vocals on the verses.  Everytime I hear this song I can't help but imagine Tom singing the alternating vocals and how good it sounded live.  Love the bridge in this one though.

8. Wishing Well 10/10

I don't know why but this turned out to be my favorite song on the album.  Great little riff.  Great vocals from Tom and I'm a sucker for the Nah Nahs in the pre-chorus.  I could totally see this being an AVA song.  Not a huge fan of the sound they went with for the riff.  Wish the would have beefed it up a bit.

9. Kaleidoscope 7/10

This song kinda of annoys me.  The riff is repetive and annoying.  It is totally a +44 sounding song which is not a bad thing but it really isn't a blink sounding song.  Tom's chorus really is the only redeeming part of this track.

10. This Is Home 7.5/10

Love the use of the synth on this track.  Not a huge fan of this track though.  I like the chorus overall but the stuttering of certain words is kind of annoying.  It might grow on me though.

11. MH 4.18.2011 8/10

Example of a good Mark song on this record.  Love the intro of the first verse.  Overall a decent track.

12. Love Is Dangerous 5/10

A nice slowed down song.  Nothing spectuacular about it.  Sounds like an AVA track with Mark Hoppus backing vocals.

13. Fighting The Gravity 6.5/10

Sounds like a +44 B-Side.  Kinda dig it actually since it's a little bit different than anything else they've done before.

14. Even If She Falls 7.5/10

Nothing too amazing about this track.  Like the guitar tone, Tom's vocal melodies and Travis' drumming though.

Overall this album kind of reminds me of LOVE.  Great opening half and then sputters off and dies.  After Wishing Well everything is mediocre.  Before (and including) Wishing Well everything is top notch and some of the best stuff they have ever made.  Wish they would have took some more time to get some better tracks made and hell, maybe even worked in the same studios together.  There are definitely some mediocre tracks in the second half that should have been cut and replaced.  Production is lacking in some of the songs as well which left me wishing for beefier sounding tracks.  Overall not bad but definitely doesn't stack up to the masterpiece that Untitled was.  Huge props to Tom who totally made this album sound good.  Even though I'm a Tom fanboy I truly think his track's are the best and he killed it on guitar and vocals.  Hopefully some of the Mark tracks grow on me.

Overall: 8/10

Top Tracks:

1. Wishing Well

2. Ghost On The Dancefloor

3. Natives/Heart's All Gone Interlude

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I'm reserving final judgement until after the first ten or so listens through, but it's everything I'd hoped for. They have kept the catchy pop-punk of past records, and pushed it forward a lot. Definately beats Untitled.

Every pop punk band is going to be ripping stuff from this album left right and centre.

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i was thinking about untitled to this new album and how its a progression and all of that. i really dont think its a progression of that album though. i still think untitled was an absolute masterpiece, and overall is definitely a lot heavier then this one. but what neighborhoods does is capture that heaviness with the perfect blend of the pop that we've seen in the earlier days. so they've really learned how to do both. so i think neighborhoods is a progression of the blink-182 sound in general, not solely from untitled.

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i was thinking about untitled to this new album and how its a progression and all of that. i really dont think its a progression of that album though. i still think untitled was an absolute masterpiece, and overall is definitely a lot heavier then this one. but what neighborhoods does is capture that heaviness with the perfect blend of the pop that we've seen in the earlier days. so they've really learned how to do both. so i think neighborhoods is a progression of the blink-182 sound in general, not solely from untitled.

Exactly. To me, it sounds more like Enema with an experimental side.

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This is my review that I wrote live while doing my first listen just now.

Ghost on the Dance Floor - 5/10 - Everything is too much like AVA for me here.

Natives - 7/10 - Good, fast tempo. Marks voice with Tom's backing in the chorus. Great Travis parts.

Up All Night - 10/10 - It's come to be loved, grown massively on me already. Great parts on all spectres of the song. LOVE the outro part.

After Midnight - 8/10 - Catchy vocal lines, cool instrumentals. Big + to the drums. Overall a slow tempoed, but very cool song.

Snake Charmer - 8.5/10 - Doesn't start off too good, but then the part that reminds big time of Start the Machine remix from WDHTW begins, which is really good. Then quickly changes up the game. Catchy chorus. Basslines make the song. Outro is pretty cool

Heart's All Gone Interlude -  - It's an interlude, it's here to build up to the next song. So I don't feel right reviewing this one.

Heart's All Gone - 7/10 - Picks up the pace of the album, really does seem like the right thing to do at this point. Good ol' punk rock. Gotta love it. Reminds alot of +44. This one has of course, alike UAN also grown a bit on me from beforehand.

Wishing Well - 6/10 - Well this riff we remember. It's quite catchy, got a nice tempo, the la-da-dup-da parts may be a bit too much, but otherwise it's an alright Tom song.

Kaleidoscope - 7/10 - Great to hear more from Mark at this point, it's got awesome Travis parts. The chorus is catchy. Overall a good song, fresh breath of air. I assume the album is halfway-ish split between Tom and Mark's songs.

This is Home - 6/10 - Catchy in a weird way. Can't say I like the "stuttering" too much. But everything else here is great.

MH 4.18.2011 - 9/10 - I guess this is something Mark Hoppus wrote in April... the 18th... of this year =P This is the first song on the album that brought a huge smile on my face just by listening to it for the first time (the other being UAN). This is my favorite thus far.

Love is Dangerous - 5/10 - Can't say I like this too much. Can't decide wether I like or hate the Tom/Mark harmonies in the beginning. The chorus I find annoying.

Fighting the Gravity - 6/10 - Simple, but bad ass intro. Kind of dissapointed it didn't kick off to a fast tempo song, nothing too special thereafter.

Even if she Falls - /10 - Catchy melody after the intro. Love the chorus. One of the better songs of the album.

Any shared thoughts?

It'll be great fun to look back at this and see if my opinions change. Music tends to grow very variously on me so I'm really excited to have this written down =P

did anyone expect anything different of Travis?  No, they didn't, it's just nice to hear.

Expect? Maybe not, but we did get some new stuff.. When you've listened a lot to Travis play, you know what to expect, but there was stuff all over the record that wasn't like stuff he's usually done. Travis did an overall good job on this one on keeping it fresh imo.

Gotta say, I disagree with you on every song. You have a weird mind, child.

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It's kinda meh after the first listen. Untitled > WYHSB >>> Neighborhoods so far. I knew they should have stopped after Untitled. They won't be able to top that record. I'm giving this one a few more listens though.

Really? Damn. Idk what everyone's fascination with Untitled is but I personally think Neighborhoods is a better album. Enema and Dude Ranch appeal more to me than Untitled.

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I've just read the whole thread and completely agree with Dean:

Looks like everyone seems to love it, which is great. Glad everyone's happy with this, they've been waiting for what seems like forever.

I'm not going to have a big debate about my opinion, and it will likely change as I've only listened the whole way through once, but this honestly sounds like a new Angels and Airwaves album to me... Tom does the vast majority of the singing, and there's much more influence from Angels and Airwaves than any of Marks stuff.

The whole record also feels disjointed and messy. Maybe that will get better with a couple of listens.

I don't usually care about the politics, but I have to say this sounds like Mark made lots of compromises while Tom got everything he wanted. Don't get me wrong, there are some great songs and I really like the record as a whole, it just doesn't seem to 'make sense' to me.

I wasn't expecting the best music I've ever heard, I'm not even that big a fan anymore. Regardless of that, to me this is incomparable to Untitled. Untitled flowed together so well and I have no trouble calling it Blinks masterpiece. This just feels like a bunch of new songs thrown on the same record.

Like I said, my opinion will probably change, I'm definitely going to give this a lot more listens. These are my first thoughts.

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It's a pretty good album. I'm impressed and at the same time a little disappointed.

IMO, best songs are Natives, snake charmer, wishing well.

It is absolutely clear that they needed Jerry Finn or at least an experienced producer for this record. It's never good to produce your own album. Second opinions are always preferred.

Biggest disappointment is the Engineering of the record. I find this odd because AVA records sound amazing and so do past Blink albums.

There are some damn catchy parts tho, and it put a huge smile on my face to rock out to these songs in my car on the way home from work!

Can't wait to see the new songs played on the next blink tour!

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Eh, don't forget that this is the direction Tom was going toward after the untitled; WDNTW was born out of bits and pieces that were meant to be the next blink record.

This is probably the album that would have followed had blink not broken up.

Probably why he resued one or two riffs from WDNTW. they were finally used where they were intended.
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Eh, don't forget that this is the direction Tom was going toward after the untitled; WDNTW was born out of bits and pieces that were meant to be the next blink record.

This is probably the album that would have followed had blink not broken up.

Probably why he resued one or two riffs from WDNTW. they were finally used where they were intended.

Exactly. This is what the next blink record was going to sound like. Imagine the scenario where they break up, don't go off to do other side projects and come back, no one would be complaining about AVA influences, but rather praising the evolution of blink. Take this for what it is, the next step for blink, a mixture of their musical interests

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I've listened 3 times, and I just feel like a lot of songs, other than the first three we heard, are inconsistent and seem like they should be separate songs. I love 90% of pretty much all the songs, but then a guitar riff or a vocal track comes in that sounds wildly out of place.

For example, Tom's yodeling ruins Wishing Well, and Mark's "This makes no sense" line ruins Fighting Gravity. Why do these guys all of the sudden think that their voices need to be heard over every inch of the album? Just shut up for a second and let the music flow.

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