That album had the perfect amount of polish. It sounds like humans played on it. These new songs sound like mark Matt and Travis had machines climb into their butts, who then took over their bodies, who then took control of their bodies as they recorded their parts... The drums are manipulated to hell, they sound almost like a reamped drum machine. They are way too consistent. I bet feldy kept the room mics from travis' performances then replaced the close mics on the snare and kick with samples, or he just beefed up the takes with perfectly recorded and sculpted samples from Travis' kit. Listen to a fucking Zeppelin record and you can hear John bonhams beater squeaking, this imperfection (among others) creates a vibe in zeppelins music, along with a majority of shit pre 2000 that is more dynamic -- more real. Sure, you probably don't want to hear a squeaky beater on a blink record, but enema was recorded on tape so overproduction to the point where Feldman takes it was simply not an option. The new vocals are auto tuned to shit, listen to built this pool, or any of these new blink tracks then listen to some vintage jams, like a beach boys acapella. This new blink stuff just sounds so unnatural. Those "ooos" at the beginning of built this pool and the part where mark sings "pool" are obviously tinkered to mrs. Claus' gingerbread cookiecutter-town, the harmonies in rabbit hole -- really every second of vocal I have heard so far is processed to Pluto... Even after listening to something from neighborhoods, the amount of auto tune on these new tracks is absolutely unbearable. Listen to these new blink songs and focus all of your brain power on a single part. even though it is impossible for your brain to know whether one sound has the same wave form as another sound (i.e. Repetitious samples aren't perceived as truly repetitious samples) or if a part has been quantized to 100, or if a part is perfectly in tune -- I guarantee if you listen to the vocals closely, then the drums closely, even the guitars, the "grocery store perfection" will start to burn your ears. Blink didn't start to use protools until the untitled album, music in general up until sometime in the early 2000s could not be tweaked to the dickens like it is today. I remember hearing interviews with blink where they joked about how hard it was to sing a good take in the studio and how hard it was to lay down a good guitar track. Watch the blink album launch videos, you can see how they sit down and take their time with each song in order to create unique shit through trial and air and collaboration. These new interviews where mark is saying "ya, we just went into the studio and recorded what ever we thought of first, we made like 7000 songs" that is bullshit. When blink was in their prime they were marinating their songs making in the marinade of the gods, making sure every part was hecka juicy. they wanted to really blow kids minds. Now they are catering to the radio, which is something I guess we have to cope with. I heard bored to death on my way back from a round of frolf today and it sounded great on the radio, but the days of blink making music that is truly genuine and artistic are gone. With neighborhoods they had a new sound, and even though it wasn't that popular I couldnt wait for mark Tom and Travis' next effort. Hearing about how the original trio considered renting out a house again to record had me so excited. Neighborhoods was a really good album, experimental but not too out there and it gave blink a solid place to move foward from. Now they are regressing into the world of shitty 2010s pop punk, even though they may be the best sounding shitty pop punk band of the 2010s, who give a fuck? Blink had the power to take a huge audience into a world of weirdness and uncharted territory. After hearing this new blink shit, I am glad Tom went off to do his own thing so there is still some realitvely unique shit to dig in too. Really, all I'm trying to say is go through the rolling stone top 100, or 500 greatest albums of all time listen to any 10 of those then come back to this new blink stuff and reflect on how much new blink sounds like one direction.