Blink 182: Who can imagine what the new record will sound like?

Blink 182 are, lest we live in any prelapsarian fantasy, busily recording their first album in six years. That makes it sound like we're in for a treat, doesn't it?

Tom DeLonge [told a film crew] "No one really knows what to expect from the next Blink record, [but] I don't think anyone thinks it's going to be a straightforward rock record. ... [It's] probably the most ambitious songwriting and art that we've ever made."

Actually, Tom: I think most people do know what to expect from a new Blink 182 record. A gentle sinking feeling. Men on the cusp of Middle Age pretending that they're actually teenagers. A straightforward rock record buried underneath as much noodling as the record company is prepared to stand.

But then, you say "it's the most ambitious art we've ever made" - and let's not laugh here, shall we, for all by-products of a culture are art, even if the art is little more than sticking two egg-box cups on a toilet roll tube, painting it bright blue and calling it a dragon.

Can teenage rebellion pay the mortgage? That's a question for Mr Durst.