Album Review 003: Stretched out with soldiers
| Featured Album | |||||||||
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| Featured Track | |||||||||
| Start The Machine | |||||||||
| The Track Listing | |
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1. Valkyrie Missle 2. Distraction 3. Do It for Me Now 4. Adventure 5. Little's Enough | 6. The War 7. The Gift 8. It Hurts 9. Good Day 10. Start the Machine |
| The Back Story |
| Last year, Blink 182 officially went on hiatus, giving birth to two new bands: Plus 44, made up of Mark Hoppus (bassist) and Travis Barker (drummer), and Angels & Airwaves, formed by Tom DeLonge + friends. Only one track has been released to the public from Plus 44 and it is very underwhelming. A&A, on the other hand, are about to release their debut album next tuesday having had an incredible teaser site over the last few months with a blockbuster-esque album trailer and a music video and single released already. It’s obvious Tom has a lot more initiative when it comes to creating music. He and Travis even formed a band, Boxcar Racer, a few years ago, creating a very popular and solid album. I’m well aware how obvious it is that I downloaded this album ahead of schedule; however, I like it so much that I’ll definitely be picking it up at HMV after it’s released next week. I recommend you do the same. |
| The Album |
| This album is better than every Blink 182 album. It is better than Boxcar Racer’s single album. Each track on this album is twice as good as Plus 44’s single released song. This is Tom DeLonge’s greatest musical achievement since the Dammit riff. The album has this intensely epic undertone throughout every song. Part of the reason for this is the way the songs all begin with long, mellow, and eerily profound intros that lead up into equally moody verses. The songs also don’t seem to fall into the habit that so many bands have where the choruses completely overpower the much more interesting and quieter verses; this gives the album a very mature and somewhat-tense sound. The epic sound can also be attributed to the military-esque percussion; the backbone of the entire album. The one thing you will notice after listening to the entire album start-to-finish, is that there is no obvious single or slow song. Each song seems to keep up a similar pace as the last, never forgetting that it is part of a whole; a story. This album definitely seems to be somewhat of a Rock Play. If I did not spend too much time looking at endless images of and reading forum threads about the new MacBook, I would put more time into finding out exactly what journey this album takes us on. The overall sound, though very unique, is not a surprising one. It has many similarities with the Tom-driven songs of Blink 182’s last album as well as the Boxcar Racer album. This sound is, like I’ve said, very solid, mature, and deep. This is not some radio-punk album, though you can bet you will hear these guys on the radio. If it weren’t for a few songs that I felt sounded a little too much like filler tracks, I would have given this album five full heart containers. |
posted by luke seeley at 9:21 PM
2 Comments:
"This album is better than every Blink 182 album."
.. Are you serious? Or are you just trying to get someone to comment?
You KNOW you are going to be hard pressed to find anyone who will agree with that statement.
We Don't Need To Whisper is Tom singing and writing exactly as he did on Blink 182's last album while making his buddies play like Taking Back Sunday and immitating the creepy, epic vibe from Deja Entendu.
A&A is nothing what Blink 182 was. They will not go on to be icons of their genre or have millions of fans. One has to "warm up" to the songs. Did you have to listen to "All The Small Things" a few times to like it?
Also, there are no stand-out "hit" singles.
You're a bit too excited there, pal.
In case there was confusion, I meant the AVA album was better than each individual Blink 182 CD, not that totality of them all. I'm also well aware Blink 182 will always have a larger fanbase than AVA; not just for their catchy pop-punk singles, but for their hilariously boyish attitudes as well.
You have to understand that we all judge bands with different criteria, so when I say a band is better than the other, I really should tell you the criteria I based that comparison on. I obviously don't abide by this rule all the time as it would make daily conversaion very exhausting and slow.
If you use popularity as part of your criteria for comparing bands, then, yes, Blink 182 is better than AVA; hands down.
I probably just had to listen to the first 20s of All The Small Things to like it.
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