Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Angels & Airwaves Love Album Review

Its been a little while since I've done a review, but Angels and Airwaves' latest addition to the rock world has inspired me. I've been an AVA fan since We Don't Need to Whisper, and I'm not really sure what it is about their music that does it for me. The best I can do to describe the reason is to say that the band takes a genre of music that I already love, then twists and turns it into something new and different. Or maybe its just the fact that I've never been able to get over Tom DeLonge's voice...

Either way, I was excited for the release of Love Part 2. My favorite AVA album is I-Empire, but Love Part 1 has comparably high numbers on my iTunes play count records. Now, the physical double album is already on my Christmas list, but until then I'll be satisfying my Angels cravings with Spotify (search Angels & Airwaves for the Love album...search Angels and Airwaves for the first two. You're welcome).

The album starts off with "Saturday Love," which starts really space-y, then takes off into quickly-sung lyrics that get you engaged in the song right away. This song follows the trend of "Call to Arms" and "Flight of Apollo" from the previous two albums--a fast catchy song right away to get you hooked and keep you listening. Next comes "Surrender", which I think is a great catchy song. The chorus is simple, but it completely works. If it wasn't for the next song, "Anxiety," I would venture to say that "Surrender" would have been one of the lead singles from the album. "Anxiety" is a great song, and the only one so far (that I've found) that has a music video. I didn't want to like "Anxiety" because its the song I'm supposed to like, but I just can't help myself; I love how the word "anxiety" is spread out over entire lines of other lyrics during the chorus. It's definitely one of my favorites on the album.

Next come a few songs that are good compositions but not quite standouts. "Crawl" starts off slower and picks up around 2:00; this works for the album as a whole because the past three songs were fairly quick. "Moon as my Witness" also starts off slow and with a fairly long intro, but again, it works and I really like the song. "Dry Your Eyes" has some weird-sounding alien speak at the beginning, but it just reinforces what Tom and AVA want you to think about their music: it's space rock. "The Revelator" has a really nice pre-chorus that changes things up from the typical AVA song-structure progression. It also seems kind of minimal in instrumentation, so this song is a worthwhile change-up. "One Last Thing" reminds me of "Rite of Spring" from I-Empire, and is an okay song; I wouldn't call it anything special by itself, but it helps round out the album.

The next song, "Inertia," makes me glad that "One Last Thing" was not actually the last thing on the album. Inertia is the closest song comparable to Boxcar Racer that I've heard from Angels & Airwaves yet. That one Boxcar album is in my top 10 punk albums, so I obviously love "Inertia." Even after the heavy guitar riff ends at the verse, I love the sound of the verses. The only problem with this song is that around 3:00, I was expecting a repeat of the beginning guitar riff, and I didn't get it. Oh well, I can't complain--its still a great song with a fantastic quote at the end: "Remember that what you've done in your life may change what someone else is doing in their life." It's so, so true and just the type of introspective lyric that I love. The last two songs, "Behold a Pale Horse" and "We Are All That We Are," so terribly sorry are classic AVA songs and nice ones to finish out the album; I especially like that the latter starts slow and builds.

Normally, I would say something like "I recommend this album to anyone who enjoys blah blah and blah. However, I'm not really sure what to compare with AVA, so just give it a listen--I'd be willing to bet you'll enjoy it, and even if you don't, at least you can say you tried something new. I keep waiting for Tom DeLonge to put out a bad album, because then I would be able to end this rock-star crush I have always had on him; however, he just won't oblige me--he keeps being awesome. Dammit.

I also have to recommend AVA live; I can't wait to get to another Angels & Airwaves concert. I went in early 2010 and raged hard, front row style. (Aka I got every bone and organ in my body smashed.) There aren't many musicians or bands I would suffer such pain and abuse for, but it was totally worth it. I was surprised at how great the show was--with all the synthesizers and just general odd sounds in their music, it would have been easy for the live music to sound weird, but it was surprisingly great. I'm also excited to see what the new drummer can do.

So go. Buy the album. Mosh at the concerts. Enjoy the greatness that is Angels & Airwaves. Angels and Airwaves? I'll never know.