We Don’t Need To Whisper by Angels and Airwaves
"Juice before all the blink-182 *** happened when we were in Europe, I had a really weird epiphany. My heart was beating about a hundred miles a minute for three weeks straight and it had never happened to me before in my life. I really felt like I'd been touched by something and I felt I was meant to do something massive."
These were the words the former Blink 182 vocalist/guitarist Tom DeLonge used when he at the beginning commented his new project, Angels and Airwaves. I must say this scared me a little, even though I’ve always been a fan of his voice but not entirely liking the sound of the music he did with Blink 182. As most people seem to agree, Mark Hoppus clearly is the more humble of the two former Blink members but I have always had the opinion that Tom had more music in him. So how does this “massive” new approach sound? Let’s find out shall we?
The line-up for the album:
Tom DeLonge - Lead Guitar, Lead Vocals, Programming
David Kennedy - Rhythm Guitar
Atom Willard – Drums
Ryan Sinn - Bass, Keyboards, Back-Up Vocals, Tambourine
The first impression I get of this record is the atmosphere. The first track Valkyrie Missile starts with a slow intro which progresses for long before the actual song starts. I believed Tom programmed this song this way to get an ‘epic’ feel for it, but sadly it doesn’t really work and mostly becomes annoying after a few listens and makes you skip the first track more often than let it run for the full duration of 6:39. It isn’t all bad, despite the annoying intro it’s a solid song when it after a few minutes kicks off.
Second song, Distraction also starts with a slow intro and it takes over a minute before the actual song starts with something sounding like a chorus. The whole song has an annoying synth sound behind it and the only thing that saves the song from total wreck is Tom’s singing in the verses.
Up to this point, I wasn’t very impressed. The annoying intros were starting to get on my nerves, as well as the weird sounds they used in the background. It Hurts their second single, is also a disappointment but it opens up fairly well with the guitar intro and the drums are pleasant, it’s a skipper most of the times. The part of the album that I really like is the songs that follow, The Adventure, The War and A Little’s Enough are all great songs.
The Adventure is the bands first single and it features no annoying slow intro and starts fairly right away. The drumming is excellent as well as the singing. A solid pop-punk tune with a little alternative touch. The War starts with a muted guitar and very good drumming by Atom. It got little of a “march” sound around it. Later heavy distorted guitars come in, the heaviest on the whole album. It’s clearly one of the catchiest songs of the record even though the wailing of Tom in the end could have been left out, really. The theme is pretty obvious and maybe a little cliché and the lyrics isn’t Tom’s best by far. It wasn’t very unpredictable that a former pop-punker would make a song about the war wasn’t it? Even though the previous two songs mentioned is excellent the real gem of “We Don’t Need To Whisper” is A Little’s Enough. It starts very mellow and it’s driven forward by Tom’s excellent sing backed up by very light drumming and some occasional guitar effects in the background while another one picks a few notes. It then turns to muted guitars and drums that remind me of fingers snapping at the interludes. At the end the song escalates and gets faster and harder and background vocals can be heard.
The three last songs is nothing really special and The Gift is probably the weakest of the three. It has some weird effect on Tom’s voice that I really can’t stand. It has some potential, the chorus is pretty good but the effect truly ruins it. More snapping of fingers and weird synth effects follows in Good Day. It’s one of the better of fillers of the album, but nothing fancy. Last is Start The Machine which at the beginning sound like a music box. The lyrics are obviously about what happened to Blink 182 with lines like “You, I won’t say sorry” and “You know what it’s like to believe” referring to Angels and Airwaves and the feeling he had about the band. It isn’t a all bad tune but it fast gets very repetive.
Recommended songs:
- The Adventure
- The War
- A Little’s Enough
Overall rating: 2.5/5
