LONDON (REUTERS) - US pop-punk band Blink-182 has released their seventh studio album California.

The group, which first formed in California in 1992, returns with regular members Matt Hoppus and Travis Barker, but former mainstay Tom DeLonge is no longer part of the band and has been replaced by Alkaline Trio member Matt Skiba.

"Absolutely, but only in the sense that I wanted to do Blink justice. And, you know, it's like - you know the fact that Mark (Hoppus) and Travis (Barker) came to me and asked me to do it, I felt like I've got to be doing something right and it's daunting is the perfect word. It wasn't terrifying or it wasn't like... I never questioned it because these guys didn't.

"It just felt like everything came together very organically. It was a challenge but a really, really fun one and it's still very surreal in the best way," said Skiba, commenting on the pressure of joining a band which has sold around 35 million albums worldwide.

The album was written over a short period of time and the lead single Bored To Death topped the Alternative Billboard Charts, becoming the band's first No. 1 in more than 12 years.

"We never set out to write a love letter to California but while we were recording it we just kept finding ourselves referencing very specific California things, either bands from California that we grew up listening to or specific, streets or specific cities, and as we got near the end for the recording process and we were talking about names California came up and it just seemed to fit because California just has this endless energy and opportunity and hope and ambition but there's also a dark, twisted side beneath it and that's how the record feels," said Hoppus.

California is out now in the UK.