2006-06-13
Tom Delonge woke up one morning finding himself without a band, or career, not knowing what would be his next step.Instead of moaning about it, or simply doing nothing he decides to keep doing his music, but in a different direction, with a new band called "Angels and airwaves".
The name Tom Delonge is probably sounding familiar to most of you, from the punk pop band
Blink 182, and I'm guessing that by now there are two kinds of readers, the first one, which is reading the words "blink 182" and his hands are slowly but firmly moving toward the "x" button to close this window, and the other half thinking "well blink's latest album was a bit different from the rest, maybe there is something good going on round here", I will suggest the first kind of readers to follow the stream of the second kind of readers and keep on reading, cause this one is very much different then blink 182's music, for the better.
Around ten years have passed since Blink 182 started up, and since then, their 14 years old fans have grown, the good news is that Tom has grown with them, and for now has deserted the pop anthems about chicks and farts, though rumor is that he still like fart jokes and ufo's but he doesn't sing about it anymore; On AVA he is shown as a serious musician and lyricist.
Angels and Airwaves, can be titled as somewhat of a punk supergroup, having Tom as a leading man, Atom Willard (former
The Offspring drummer), Ryan Sinn (bass man for
The Distillers), and Tom’s friend and guitarist from the band
Box Car Racer. Surprisingly, this is not punk.
The outcome isn't like anything we've heard from these guys before (taking notice that most intros here are longer the an average Blink 182 song), but is something we've heard around, to be more specific, we've heard it around the late 80's, with loads of U2's the edge guitar feeling to every song, to make a really interesting supergroup they could've brought him in, and they will probably sound the same.
The thing I do admire here, is the fact that these guys didn't say "ok we're doing punk, lets do it forever in different forms", which shows a kind of versatility that I didn't believe they've got in them, and they apparently do, they just have to grow a bit more into it.
In the roll of taking this music seriously, Tom said he's ideal way to listen to this album is in the darkness, or by candlelight, and you have to be very comfortable, and just listen to it, and soak it in.
The opening track "Valkyrie missile" is a great opener for the album, its starts of with moody keys, and samples of people talking, getting intense more and more and explodes into a full arrangement song.
Most songs here can easily be spotted as a stadium giants, you can already picture the sweaty teenagers screaming along to songs like "distraction" or going along with the "oh oh" in "the war" song. Even though, this album is not only for kids, though not exactly directs to adults either.
This album was originally made to be a mixture between
U2 and
Pink Floyd, maybe even reach out to the Coldplay fans here and there, and I believe that soft rock, and interesting pop fans will enjoy this very much, even though it didn't accomplish its mission sounding like those bands (except for the U2 guitar sound); I'm really hoping that for the next album they will work more on diverting the songs a bit, and will feel more comfortable in their own skin, this album isn't bad at all, but it doesn't come close to peaking in success, it fun and enjoyable, and maybe that's what matters.
Roy Povarchik
