Angels and Airwaves

Tom DeLonge, formerly of Blink 182, has formed a new band called Angels and Airwaves along with Atom Willar, former drummer for Offspring, and a few other guys. Their first album, "We Don't Have to Whisper", was released this Tuesday. I picked it up under the standard $10 new release deal at Target and have listened to it a few times through. The first single, "The Adventure", has been playing on the radio for a few weeks now, and it sounded interesting enough to give the band a shot. "The Adventure" is also the first time in recent memory I've heard "Heyo" as a lyric, although maybe Outkast did it first. Heyo.

Lyrically, this disk is boring and falls short of the low bar DeLonge's set in his two other lyrically weak projects, meaning Blink182 and Box Car Racer. Nearly every song ends with him chanting some piece of the chorus, often the title of the song. The message of the CD is trite and simple: I'm hurt, feel like I'm dead, confused and lost. Girls have messed me up a little, and I don't know what all of the answers are, but if you add "just a little more love" to your life, your pain and your problems will be substantially less. DeLonge did better with Blink's lighthearted sound and would do well to remember that one Dashboard Confessional is enough. The disk also comes with an "explicit content" label, although it appears to be more marketing than anything else: he uses the F word once, and might say "shit" a few times, but for the most part, the lyrics are a bland mix of overused teenage metaphors for existential angst.

Musically, the album lives up to expectations. It's more of a synthesized rock-alternative sound than the punkish Blink or punkier BoxCar, with DeLonge's signature interesting-if-simple guitar riffs driving the melody. Every track has enjoyable music and it stays interesting for all 50 minutes. DeLonge's voice, with his characteristic nasal-driven Midwestern dialect, makes me miss Blink's other singer, Mark Hoppus, and I think it's safe to say that there are few drummers capable of living up to Travis Barker, but the music still manages to stay fun, upbeat, moving, and lively.

In conclusion, while this will never be one of my favorite albums, it's the sort of thing GMack could glean different desirable qualities from for interblending with his current (or previous) mental state to create a utopia of both thought and perception. Well, at least perception anyway.