But what of the underlying tunes? Is this substantial mixing desk jiggery-pokery simply the dazzling sugar frosting applied to a particularly loathsome sonic turd? Well, ye dagger-toting detractors, sheath your weapons and plug your sensitive ears, because blink-182 have pretty much done it again. Take Off Your Pants simply cannot fail because it’s positively lousy with similarly barbed hooks to What’s My Age Again? and All The Small Things. The nerdy romanticism of First Date, for instance, with its utterly irresistible ‘Let’s make this last forever’ tagline; the unrequited saccharine mosh pit mewlings of Story Of A Lonely Guy and the Westlife-with-tattoos, Warped tour love affair of The Rock Show. What we have here is money-in-the-bank commercialism. Eminently hummable dummy-spitting tantrum rock for the emo generation; a golden shower of easily bleepable swear words and the kind of unshakeable tunes that will very probably haunt you to your grave.
Like it or not, with Take Off Your Pants And Jacket blink-182 have pretty much made their masterpiece. It’s not big, it’s not clever, but it’ll make them very, very rich.
Verdict: 3/5