Angels and Airwaves are a super group of sorts. A member from Blink 182, a member from 30 Seconds to Mars, one from Boxcar Racer, and their newest drummer was previously of Lostprophets and Nine Inch Nails. Okay, forgive me, not quite a ‘super’ group but still, a group of people with enough experience (and musical talent) to expect something.
When they first came out, they were billed as some band of epic proportions, whether this was something they actually believed or not I don’t know, but I came away feeling that this was just a serious Blink 182, a straight-up pop punk band with a lot of potential but nothing to set them apart, a lot of things to say but not the balls to say it. Yet, obviously, they must have done something right, because they are hugely successful and me, well, I’m not, so I must be wrong right?
Latest single, Anxiety, is the first single from their fourth album, Love Pt. 2 (yeah, I didn’t think it was an imaginative album name either) and to me it very much does exactly the same as what the band have done before. You have the typical Tom DeLonge vocals along with his terrible rhyming lyrics (example; “Faster, I dream in speeds of ashes, my heart it beats and crashes”) that is mediocre high school poetry at best, while musically it’s your standard pop song structure with the bass player following the root notes while the guitar does, well, we’ve heard it in Blink before, only this isn’t as good, or imaginative (and that’s saying something as I don’t like Blink 182 at all).
It’s quite frustrating as a music ‘critic’ to see bands like this getting people’s attention. I see hundreds of small bands, talented musicians, pushing the boundaries of music and my idea of music, and they get zero attention from people, yet these guys can go out, churn out this nonsense and sell records just because of who they are (or were). Guitar music isn’t dead, but its listeners need to change if any of us want it to become as important as it should be.
Avoid.
[rating: 1]
www.modlife.com/angelsandairwaves
