Angels & Airwaves - We Don't Need to Whisper
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Angels & AirwavesEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 2006-05-29
Music Label: Universal UK
Soundtracks:
- Valkyrie Missile
- Distraction
- Do It For Me Now
- Adventure
- Little's Enough
- War
- Gift
- It Hurts
- Good Day
- Start The Machine
- Machine (Live) (Bonus Track)
- Do It For Me Now (Live) (Bonus Track)
Free Music Notes for We Don't Need to Whisper
Free Music Review: Science, spirit and redemption on a compact disc
Hit: 4 Stars
Angels & Airwaves debut album hit me at the perfect time in my life. I was getting ready to leave my hometown of many years, moving in with a longtime long-distance girlfriend in Tennessee. A new and important chapter in my life was beginning, and the band's sound and overall message were very inspiring for me...the potential of humanity, starting over in your life, redemption, and questions of the spirit. I heard We Don't Need To Whisper about a week before I left, and it was the soundtrack of my entire experience as I lived there for the next three months. (Things got dark and didn't work out while I was there, but it was nevertheless fun and an incredible time and the music brings me nothing but good memories. As an interesting aside, I moved from and came back to Ojai, California, which is where the band filmed most of the outside shots for "The Adventure" music video, as I found out later...)
The sound was widescreen, epic, and cinematic, and (as a huge lover of prog-rock) filled with many of my favourite things: soft keyboard tones, interesting use of vocal effects, sampled sounds, hybrid mixture of anthemic rock and punk styles, and some delayed and reverbed guitar (calling to mind The Edge mixed with some David Gilmour.) It sounds like Tom DeLonge went back to his younger years, spreading his albums out on the floor, with The Wall and Joshua Tree being the prime influences.
"Valkyrie Missile" starts off slow, soft and cinematic keyboards painting a picture of watching the sun rise over the edge of the Earth as background radio chatter kicks things off and delayed-effect guitars rise and fall to a steady pulse. The verses are a little weaker and unsteady, but the chorus of "Just hold on..." and variations on the words are quite moving.
"Distraction" opens with what is to become AvA's iconic style; pounding military drums, a steady buildup to the first verse, and percussive keyboards that have an oldschool 80s/90s videogame flavour.
"Do It For Me Now" is one of the best songs on the album, and everytime I hear it, I remember holding hands with my then girlfriend. A pulsing keyboard/radio sound keeps a steady rhythm and the song is pure emotion as the choruses hit home. The song ends on a hopeful climax as "Just hold on/Hold on to me..." repeats over and over. A lone synthesizer remains and expands, fading into..."The Adventure", which opens with more delayed guitar, exploding into an incredible main "theme". This song leaked before its release (and after a joyous reception from fans) prompted the group to choose it as the leadoff single in spring of 2006.
A plaintive and melancholy organ/keyboard combo opens "A Little's Enough". Gorgeous reverbed guitar echoes in the background. This song vividly recalls my time in Tennessee more than any other. "The War" continues the martial drumbeats, this time mixed with some acoustic and de-tuned guitar and a punky chorus of semi-screamed vocals. Some great riffing in this song, although it's not one of my favourites.
"The Gift" has a beautiful opening, scratchy radio sounds and heavenly keyboards leading into a gorgeous intro and verses. When the chorus hits, I get goosebumps everytime. Atom Willard has some amazing drumming on this track. "It Hurts" is a return to a faster-paced tune, revealing more of the group's pop-punk influence.
"Good Day" is another beautiful song, full of longing and happiness. The acoustic and simple chorus says so much with so little, and the keyboard tone reminds me of growing up in the 80s, with a sound very much like an old Speak & Spell toy. "Start The Machine" ends the album on a hopeful but melancholy note, childhood memories flooding back into your awareness as the keyboards take on another toy-like tone. Sequenced percussion and drum effects throb and waver as beautiful stabs of keyboard and guitar spiral upward on the choruses.
For the record, I was never a fan of Tom's previous band (which I am loathe to mention here), and still am not. I generally do not like lyrically juvenile music, and I always thought they sucked. I was disappointed upon their reformation in 2009 (despite the uplifting personality issues they worked out) and was at least glad that AvA would not be dissolved.
My sole criticism of Angels & Airwaves is that (much like sister group 30 Seconds To Mars) they are very much a studio band as far as Tom's vocal and playing abilities are concerned. He sounds wonderful when he can use Pro-Tools to make everything perfect, but in a live concert setting, he sounds terrible most of the time, completely off-pitch and shaky. It's disconcerting (hey, nice pun), but I expect it, and I still catch them live whenever they play my area.
Admittedly, I did get into AvA rather serindipitously, via their prog-rock sound and album cover which piqued my interest immediately. After hearing some samples, I was like, "Yeah...this is prog-rock sure enough..." While many prog fundementalists might disagree (likewise fans coming from the pop, punk or emo angles), I always took the term "progressive rock" to be taken literally...when a band mixes styles, experimenting and trying new things, which also maybe adding in a dash of something conceptual or thematic to the lyrics as a whole. Angels & Airwaves have certainly accomplished these goals, and quite well, I must add.
I strongly recommend other bands with a sound that might appeal to fans of AvA: Pendragon (Believe or Pure), It Bites (The Tall Ships), Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, The Wall, A Momentary Lapse of Reason), U2 (The Unforgetable Fire or The Joshua Tree), dredg, Coheed & Cambria, and Rush (Moving Pictures, Signals, or Hold Your Fire.)
We Don't Need to Whisper Poster
Tom DeLonge knows how he'd like people to listen to We Don't Need to Whisper, the debut album from his new group, Angels and Airwaves. "I really want the room to be dark, with black light or a candle," he says. "People should have headphones on, and they should be really comfortable, maybe sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed. I spent a year and a half working on this record, trying my hardest to give people a moment of escapism. All I ask is 50 minutes of a lowered heart rate."In just over a decade with Blink-182, DeLonge went from the San Diego suburbs to the top of the world. The band sold over 20 million records worldwide, won a wide assortment of MTV awards, and sold out arenas everywhere from London to Tokyo.
So in early 2005, with Blink-182 on a break, DeLonge came to a crossroads. Rather than do a solo album or another version of his well-reviewed side project, Box Car Racer, DeLonge decided to start a new band. He recruited Box Car Racer guitarist David Kennedy, bassist Ryan Sinn (formerly of the Distillers), and drum god Atom Willard (previously of Rocket from the Crypt and the Offspring). The quartet headed into the studio?where they would try anything to find a new sound or a new song.
The name Angels and Airwaves popped into DeLonge's head while he was driving. He wasn't certain about the name at first, but then he realized that "Angels and Airwaves" abbreviated as "AAA"?and that if he inverted the middle A, it spelled AVA, which is also the name of Tom?s daughter.
"This is the next half of Tom DeLonge's life. If you liked anything that I did in the past, this is very much the next step."
"The magic of Blink-182 was that the three of us came together to create this amazing band," he says. "But now there's no holds barred. I get to be me completely with a new group of talented musicians. We are on a different intensity level with this record, and it's something that we can't wait to share with the rest of the world.
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