Gusto can count for a lot in a band. This goes double for young bands, and in triplicate for pop-punk bands. While their later albums are more finely crafted in their playing and songwriting, they'd never match the sheer love of youth they show on songs like "Voyeur" or "Dick Lips." Hell, at any slower tempo, "Voyeur" would be unbelievably creepy, as opposed to kind-of amusing and very fun. They're not quite in the definitive iteration of the band - Scott Raynor is the drummer on Dude Ranch, just before being replaced by the (better) Travis Barker, and the album, but they're a young bunch of kids trying to make good and have fun, whether it's the occasional dick joke or a song dedicated to Princess Leia ("New Hope"). The rest of the album is filled with the kind of girl troubles that resonate best with teens whose every heartbreak is the worst catastrophe that could possibly befall a person. It's neither consistent nor in any way diverse, and the production is clean enough that riffage can sound like a droning if you lose concentration on it. At the same time, it's refreshing to hear blink-182 before they seemed to become a truly market-tested pop band.
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