the third and newest collection of synth-laced lovelorn songs by tom delonge and crew that provide the listener with an ambient wave of music about life, death, religion and of course, love. if you know angels and airwaves' previous efforts, this will fall right in line with those. i will admit that this album has a few more moments that stand out than previous works. dont worry though... if you enjoy the seemingly endless and gratuitous instrumental parts of the first two albums, then your in luck. they squeeze them in all over the album. the entire first track of the album is 90 seconds of pure unadulterated synth-strumental bliss.
after listening to the album through several times, sure there are the cliche themes that revolve around love but this is a little bit more. yes, there are parts that pull in religion and god but those are to mirror our own experience. who hasnt prayed to god about some aspect of a relationship or questioned if love is real or not... much like religion. sure there are allusions to the end of the world but those metaphors to describe the epic nature of love and its messy and sometimes extremely abrupt end. make no mistake, this album is 100% about relationships (the album is called "love" and came out of valentine's day!) but there is a little bit more to it than just another poppy emo offering.
i think the true meaning and purpose of the album is to play out the life cycle of love and a relationship. a "love story." beginning, middle and unfortunately, an end. the album begins with a song about loneliness, moves into falling in love, people being in love, issues beginning to arise in the relationship, love falls apart and then finally ending with loneliness. back at square one. you could easily hit the end of the record and say "repeat" and not lose a step. and maybe that was the idea behind the album.
in terms of listening pleasure, if you like late blink or anything by angel and airwaves, this album falls right in. nothing groundbreaking. just a solid well written and thoughtful album. minus the excessive instrumentals that seem self-indulgent and just get in the way, the songs themselves are really well done. i also appreciate that the tempo differs more from song to song than on previous efforts. on this album you have fast, slow and medium songs... gives the album momentum and keeps it interesting.
all in all, i thought it was good. i dont think it will alter how you think about angels and airwaves or convince you to like them if you never liked them before. however, its an enjoyable rock album and tom's voice does not come across too whiny which is always a plus.
the official jiggles rating scale(1-10):
1-3: if i listen to this again, its because either i was confused or needed to be reminded of what is the baseline for crappy music
4-6: eh... its entertaining maybe but the either the lyrics are crap, the music is crap or they have a shitty drummer (im a sucker for a good drummer)
7-9: solid album with good lyrics that will remain on my ipod cue for at least the next year and i will feel comfortable encouraging my friends to listen/buy the album
10: coheed and cambria quality music with dustin kensrue/ben gibbard/dallas green/mike nolan quality lyrics (very rarely happens)
angels and airwaves - "love" = 7.5
also, there is a drinking game within this album. the rules are the following:
1. drink every time you hear the words "love" "heart" "life" and "death"
2. drink during unnecessarily extended instrumental sections
dont plan on being functional by track 7.
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