What do pink bubble gum and (+44) have in common? They’re coated with sticky artificial flavoring to sell to the masses, and what seems to taste good for the first minute turns into monotonous goo.

In 2005, (+44) rose out of the fallen ashes of Blink-182 as a testimony to Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker’s desire to continue making music without the help of pain-in-the-ass bandmate Tom DeLonge, who instead went off to form Angels and Airwaves. Their debut album has everything a contemporary pop-rock band needs, from whiney vocals to immature lyrics, all put to the same recycled power chords. It’s been done before — particularly by Weezer on their most recent blunder, Make Believe.

Hoppus is at least less annoying than his former vocal counterpart, and gives occasional philosophical insight such as, “”The past is only the future with the lights on.”” Otherwise, it’s the same old washed up love-pop with contagious I-want-to-get-into-her-pants-but-I’ll-say-I-love-her-so-I-don’t-seem-like-a-dirty-pervert hooks.

You’d think professional musicians would look for some variety, but (+44) chooses instead to repeatedly dish up power-chord overkill laced with messy distortion, one big chunky shit storm after another. Their bassist is no exception — he plays at most four different notes per song and sounds more like a metronome than a musician.

Besides a couple of standout tracks including “”Weatherman,”” this rehashed power-punk sounds straight out of the crap-pop mold and ready to be sold.