Box Car Racer

Side projects are strange, elusive beasts. Sometimes sublime (Beck’s Mutations), sometimes heinous (Bowie’s Tin Machine), their only common trait is that they are established out of more or less true and honourable intentions: creative rejuvenation and respite from the pressure placed by industry and fans alike on Very Important Acts.

We can only assume that the motives of Tom DeLonge and Travis Barker in creating Box Car Racer were equally pure, but anyone who recognises the names will be forgiven for doing a double-take. As two-thirds of US pogo kings Blink-182, the pair hardly seem likely candidates for that seizure of creative grand mal which only a non-commercial offshoot can remedy.

Box Car Racer is marketed, as well it might be, as a deep, dark, sombre record, “a chance to experiment and express another musical side.” But how far does it depart from pasture 182? After a deceptively mellow piano intro, the opener ‘I Feel So’ crashes into a very familiar high-octane grungescape, setting a template from which the album scarcely deviates. Even the acoustic ‘Letters To God’ can’t resist punking it up with 70 seconds to go, and only ‘There Is’, a borderline-endearing ballad, manages to offer any guitar mercy. ‘Tiny Voices’ is a chunky anthem with disjointed but formulaic rhythms and ‘My First Punk Song’ one minute of loyal tribute to Hüsker Dü-era 200bpm lunacy.

These aren’t bad songs. Indeed, they are noticeably more engaging than the brainless soundtrack fodder of Blink-182. Lyrically there’s more meat too: Blink’s frat-house verbal slapstick yields to Frank Black-style conspiracy nerdisms (“I left my fear behind me/Of those lights out by the station/The government is lying”, “I saw Virginia get rid of Langley/And its secrets too”). No Elvis Costello, but it beats the hell out of “What’s my age again?”

After a few listens though, you begin to feel a bit hoodwinked by BCR. Only an act as shamelessly, proudstupidly commercial as Blink-182 could concoct a side project this undemanding, this un-experimental. You can certainly, and accurately, say that it’s a tad less pandering and more heartfelt than the band’s mainstream output, but that’s like saying chickens are smarter than grasshoppers: true but useless.

Note to musos – Travis Barker is a devastatingly good drummer. Indeed, if every song on the album leaves you cold, there’s still fun to be had with his sheer virtuosity.

Is this enough to make up for the ordinariness of Box Car Racer? Not really. But hey, each BCR album means one less Blink-182 album, right? That counts for something.