Review Summary: ...Of Nightmares is a frighteningly jarring change of lanes for Angels and Airwaves.
Angels and Airwaves was a real change for
Blink-182’s Tom DeLonge. His career as the pop-punk poster boy alongside his Blink brothers was behind him (until the band reunited, of course), but in the wake of new beginnings, DeLonge let his
U2 love come alive. Angels and Airwaves managed to get five albums recorded in the course of a decade, and while none of them were superb, they showed that DeLonge had some ideas that Blink-182 simply wasn’t the place for. With a new promise of two new albums from Angels and Airwaves, DeLonge and crew released the
…Of Nightmares EP, and if this is a sign of what’s to come from the group, get worried. This is a frighteningly jarring change of lanes.
The four-track EP
…Of Nightmares is as far from the band’s genesis as you can get. Tom DeLonge has clearly been listening to a lot of synth-driven alternative these days, because that’s what
…Of Nightmares’ most apparent influences seems to be. The first and final tracks, “Home” and “Parasomnia” respectively, stick to low bass hums and the same kind of electronica blips that peppered recent releases from AWOLNATION, or at worst, Muse’s
The 2nd Law. “Home” specifically uses the same choir-style vocals as the band’s immediate peer 30 Seconds to Mars, but with such an intentional minimalism that it feels drained. “Parasomnia” is easily the most disappointing track. With an intro eerily reminiscent of Crosses, you’d assume the same sort of ambient moodiness that made them so great, but the track sinks quickly with cookie-cutter electronic melodies, a weak dance beat, and one of the most unsatisfyingly empty endings I’ve heard in a song in a long time. “Home” and “Parasomnia” sound like undercooked remixes of a poor man’s Shiny Toy Guns, and for a group who founded themselves on a sense of majesty from a man moving into new musical territory, these tracks just bubble under the surface, while sounding outright dull in the process.
The two other tracks on the EP, “Into the Night” and “View From Below”, tread the same waters DeLonge has been swimming in since the project became. His vocal style still sounds out of place among the soaring chords and toned notes, and even as someone who found traces of potential in previous albums like
I-Empire, I can say that this is where you find DeLonge spouting cheesiness in his lyrics to an exhausting degree. Really, these aren’t terrible tracks, but they do nothing to differentiate themselves from previous records’ selections. “View From Below” has an off-putting melody in its chorus, but at least has a small bit of personality amongst four tracks that either feel like the same ol’ stuff or awkwardly shift into a trudging minimalism.
…Of Nightmares is so misguided an experiment that I’m actively praying that DeLonge doesn’t pursue this direction as the project continues. “Home” and “Parasomnia” are just off-putting in every way, neither sounding like Angels and Airwaves, nor sounding appealing on their own. They’re minimalist for no logical reason, and they shift in tempo and mood in totally incongruent ways. And even while the middle tracks feel comfortably familiar from the band, they’re still dull as dirt, blending into the echoing DeLonge vocals and the guitar notes right out of The Edge’s cookbook. If this is some sort of preview of what to expect from Angels and Airwaves in the coming years, get worried, because
…Of Nightmares is a jarring shift with little to get excited about.
