Album Review [Angels and Airwaves - We Don't Need To Whisper]

[hRook]

Angels and Airwaves - We Don't Need To Whisper

Well, I first heard of this band from... let me think; My friends Mat, Mitch, Laura, Ross, Dan (2D), Guitar Center, MySpace, purevolume, some e-mail newsletter, Rolling Stone, AP... You get the picture. You basically can't avoid this band.

Mind you, when I put in this album, what I expected to hear was completely different than what I actually heard. It wasn't this "my first punk band" thing that I came to expect from DeLonge, it was something completely different. Very musical, very relaxing, I loved it.

The album itself flows very nicely, to the point where you barely know when one song stops and another starts. I honestly listened through it one-and-a-half times before realizing that it had indeed looped. It's easily singable. In my mind, the album itself is awesome.

Beefs I have with this album:

Only 10 songs? Seems a little skimpy to me. Nevertheless, running time is about 50 minutes, which outdoes several 15-track albums by 2-minute-song bands. Also, the album simply doesn't live up to the hype. Then again, what could? This is quite possibly the most hyped album this year, and Tom seemed to do it with words alone.

Also, I'll never get used to DeLonge's voice in my life.

Rating: 4/5

Reccomended? For any Tom DeLonge (Blink182, Boxcar Racer) fans definitely. Also anybody who's into ambient or electronica, mixed in with rock.

[Aaron C-T]

Haha. I wasn't really a fan of Blink 182 until they got away from all the "omb suck my balls while I fart crap." Basically, I didn't get into them until their self-titled album. There were tons of memorable songs on it such as "Always" and "All of This." Then I went back and listened to some of their own songs and picked out a few that were also pretty good such as "Adam's Song." Before I knew it I was a Tom DeLonge fan, although undoubtedly Mark Hoppus has the better voice. I then ran out and bought Boxcar Racer, which had a different feel from Blink 182 all together, and had lots of Blink fans saying DeLonge had gone "emo," those were also the complaints with the self-titled album, but whatever. I started following AVA when I got some random email from the Boxcar Racer site. I was jazzed thinking "yes, another BR CD." But it wasn't, so I listened and they didn't have any actual songs yet just videos of Tom and the band members (with the bassist from BR returning) with the tunes in the background "It Hurts" and .. I think "Valkyrie Missile." I loved the tunes so I came back a few months later to listen to "The Adventure" and was immediately hooked.

What I love about DeLonge is that.. he's been in 3 bands so far that I know of. And they all have a totally different sound. As you said this is an ambient/electronic/rock sound, which made me immediately love it; Boxcar Racer seemed to just be a rock song with a different vibe from Blink. So yea, I've loved this CD so far. Although the 10 song thing did tick me off a bit, but Valkyrie Missile is almost 7 minutes long and the other songs top off at around 4-5 minutes a piece so it's not really that bad. I can't wait for the next AVA CD and judging by the bad vibes that seem to be going around between Mark & Travis and DeLonge I think there will be a next one.

When I first started listening I immediately went "Travis could've torn that up like 10x better" before it actually hit me that he wasn't with DeLonge this time around, he went with Mark to start Plus 44. Being that I love Mark's voice I'll be getting that as well, hopefully he'll get more singing time. There's also a female guitarist in that band which should mean no more ball jokes.

I'll give it a 4/5 as well. Simply because nothing is perfect. That and the fact that a few more songs (12 maybe?) would've had me jazzed. xD

As for Plus 44.. go listen to "No It Isn't." It's the only song I've heard by them. And it's not really that big of a change as Blink 182->AVA was for DeLonge, but then again we haven't heard much of Mark so I suppose anything is a change. But whatever.