While +44 isn’t completely different than from the sound blink-182 captured on their last release, it would be an injustice to the band to categorize their debut album, When Your Heart Stops Beating, as “blink-182 with synths.”  Full text...

When Your Heart Stops Beating is sometimes a catchy and fun release that is exceedingly upbeat, but occasionally transforms into a dark and eerie, personal album, which allows the listener to take in the band in both varieties and discover just how talented these guys are.   Full text...

Ex-Blinkers Hoppus/Barker win battle of the new bands   Full text...

+44's first effort is an enjoyable diversion, but it's not apt to stop anyone's heart.  Full text...

Rapid-fire punk-pop about girls and no-hope towns that beats the baggy shorts off DeLonge’s horribly overproduced effort.  Full text...

It's a pop album through and through, and should prove the +44 crew easily defeats Angels and Airwaves, at least in the first post-Blink face-off.   Full text...

Shortly after blink-182 announced their "indefinite hiatus" in early 2005, bassist Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker described their new band, (+44), as a more experimental, electronica-oriented outfit. Like Berlin or Postal Service, they said. That might have been cool, but Hoppus and Barker explore the idea with commitment on only a handful of tracks here. On gut-punch punk-pop numbers such as "Baby Come On" and the title track, the keyboards and mechanized beats feel more like an afterthought than an operating principle.  Full text...