We Don't Need to Whisper

by

Angels & Airwaves

Edit

Blink-182 changed continously throughout it's band-life. But not until Enema of the State did they to me make a bigger change. They turned somewhat "poppy" and had real good songs. In Take off your Pants and Jacket, they started to turn more "Rock", and it turned out to be my favorite CD. But in their final album ( Titled Blink-182? ) they turned really "emo", depressing, somewhat gothic.. but I still liked that, too. But when they broke up, or went on an "indefinite hiatius", I was pretty shocked, since Tom and Mark were "best friends".

In Angels and Airwaves (AvA) Tom takes on a more serious and loving side without his former bandmates Travis Barker and Mark Hoppus. Angels and Airwaves consists of Box Car Racer guitarist David Kennedy, former Distillers bassist Ryan Sinn, and the drummer Atom Willard, best known as former drummer for The Offspring. With a great group of guys like this, you'd expect a great cd, and that is exactly what you get. Tom said it would change the world.. it hasn't. I think he was just feeling good that day. :P. Here's my review.

Valkyrie Missle: 10/10. This has got to be my favorite track on the entire album. The intro is a long two minutes and forty seconds, a riff doesn't start until a minute or so into it, and tempo doesn't change until a minute thirty. I loved the lyrics though, and Tom's voice makes it a much better song. I'm hoping this is AvA's next single. This is my favorite on the album I'd say.

Distraction: 9/10. Starts out with a less than lengthy intro than Valkyrie Missle ( This one is a minute and nine seconds ) and the lyrics are pretty repetetive, but I just like this song. And like I will say continously about these songs, Tom's voice makes it better better better.

Do It For Me Now: 8.5/10. Only a thirty six second intro (probably the shortest) and a solid song, but it's really nothing too special.

The Adventure: 9.5/10. If anyone's heard about AvA and heard one song, they've most likely heard this one. It's AvA's first single. It's one minute thirty second intro is pretty repetetive, but it picks up as soon as Tom starts singing. Good lyrics, nice quick paced beat... I've just heard this song too many times.

A Little's Enough: 9/10. One of the slower paced songs on the album, but it's still good. Not the best song, but it surely is a good one with pretty good lyrics.

The War: 9.5/10. I love the main riff. Good lyrics, which mainly talk about, you probably guessed it... war. The best thign about this song though is definitely the guitar work though. But that plus Tom's voice equals magic. Very good song.

The Gift: 9.5/10. This may very well be the first AvA song I heard because I downloaded it. Great lyrics, and OF COURSE, great vocals from Tom make this one of the best on the album in my opinion.

It Hurts: 8.5/10. The main thing said in this song is "It Hurts" ... several times ... and it really stays the same tempo throughout the whole song. This is one of the worst on the album to me.

Good Day: 9.5/10. I loved Tom's vocals in this song. The lyrics are like most songs, just about "oo baby I love you... mmm don't dump me." But it's still good.

Start The Machine: 8.5/10. Slower paced song the whole song, really, and a really "peaceful" way to end the album.

AvA seems very much to me like a more modern U2 for some reason. Slow paced, meaningful lyrics, and just overall great stuff. The only thing AvA needs to work on is how long their intros are and closes. Many times it would seem as if a song was over, and it just kept on going and repeating the same line over and over. The lyrics also get repetetive sometimes. Anyway, I sincerely hope this band doesn't split now. Stay together, Angels and Airwaves. Stay together, for the kids.

We Don't Need to Whisper definitely deserves a:

9.6/10

You absolutely must buy this CD.

The products of band splits are always interesting, not just because of the innate drama that comes with it, but because of how it reveals a little more about the original band and the songwriting dynamic that influenced it. Take At the Drive-In; the resulting two bands, Sparta and the Mars Volta took two decidedly different directions, with Sparta focused on shorter, more traditional arrangements and the Mars Volta taking an unrestrained foray into prog. While fans split into separate camps over the results, it becomes clear that Cedric and Omar were the force behind the band's most experimental moments, while Jim grounded the band in reality leading to the now beloved dynamic of the At the Drive-In.

With Angels & Airwaves and Plus-44 coming out of Blink-182, the main songwriting duo of Tom and Mark split. Though Plus-44 has only one track publically available, one could speculate about the dynamic of those two songwriters on Blink-182, an album that had the band experimenting with ambitious song structures and mixing up everything with more dance-oriented drumming. It seems pretty clear that Tom Delonge was aiming high, while Mark kept the album tight and loose.

With Angels & Airwaves, Tom Delonge has certainly taken the route of the ambitious songwriter, sometimes leading to great moments, but often unrestrained and overlong. The first single, "The Adventure" was Blink-182 by way of U2's Unforgettable Fire, replete with the overlapping and delayed guitar chops that could only have been inherited from the Edge; it's still a great song, and one of the standouts of the album. Even the opener, "Valkyrie Missile" has a terrific song somewhere, but it's sadly buried in an overlong two-minute intro.

Another track, "Little's Enough" maintains an artificially slow tempo; the hook is pure Enema of the State, but it feels like it's standing at the edge of a familiar drumbeat, one which never actually appears. "War" is another Blink-182 song, and a good one -- it's just too long. That is a recurring problem; unlike the efficiency of great songs like "Anthem" or "Carousel, " so many of the songs aren't allowed to work on their own merit but become buried in lengthy introductions and overproduction.

It's a little unfortunate to have to criticize this album, because Blink-182 was such a wonderful maturation for the band and one that understood that complexity does not always equal progress. The Ramones were great because they could do so much with so little, and Blink-182 were certainly students of this mentality. The extra production and instrumentation that comes with Whisper often obscure gems of songwriting rather than highlight them.

In the end, the problem with We Don't Need to Whisper is not one of ambition; Tom wants to write the Cure's Disintegration and U2's Joshua Tree, but needs a creative foil to keep his songwriting economical. Even on Cheshire Cat, you could hear this musician's ability to write an incredibly tight, no-nonsense post-NOFX pop/punk song, and Tom still can -- he just needs a friend to tell him to tone it down once in awhile.