Angels & Airwaves - LOVE (2010)
See, reader, I love and respect you because sometimes you cause Google to pay me a penny, so I just gotta sit down with you and admit it straight-up: I had a few years to love "We Don't Need to Whisper" and "I-Empire" while never quite catching the AVA train post-2007, but this just feels like a bunch of rehashes! Tom DeLonge called it their most progressive album yet but I don't really hear that, and it just feels like a bunch of stuff I've already heard before.
Wait a second... Isn't "Epic Holiday" pretty much EXACTLY "Everything's Magic" off of the last album!? What the fuck?! The melody, the guitar riff, the overall structure of the song is pretty much the same, if not the exact same. Were the band lazy or did they think they could just slip this one past the fanbase? Did they all suffer a form of brain damage, demo "Epic Holiday" and think "Huh, this song just CAME TO US... It must mean we have a hit on our hands!" and didn't bother to listen to their last album?! For a musician who's as vehemently obsessed with constantly pushing the envelope and progressing as Tom DeLonge is, why recycle what you were doing? Not even similar music (I wasn't expecting Tom DeLonge to churn out a post-rock album or anything) but pretty much the EXACT same songs?! What is the use in trying to think "outside of the box" when that entails you making your own box and staying inside of it?
Don't get me wrong, I love when bands stick to their original sounds (there should be a love-letter written to all of the punk bands I love that never strayed from their sound) but when you're fucking equating this album to being like a combination of Radiohead and U2 with Pink Floyd-esque movements, and I'm not even really a fan of any of those bands, but if you're saying that, you better be packing some fucking epic shit and be on top of your game to where it seems like you INVENTED your game.
Why didn't they bother to listen to their last album, if anything, as a lyrical quality standpoint? Some of the lyrics on this album are pretty half-assed and come across as iPhone draft notes written at 3 AM while Tom DeLonge can't sleep despite being on sleeping meds. I guess my main concern is WHY THE FUCK DO SOME OF THE LYRICS SOUND LIKE THEY WERE TAKEN FROM GOOGLE TRANSLATE?!?! No no I'm not even shitting you, read this from "The Flight of Apollo":
"Finally I get this feeling we're all alone in one big world
Just to realize that all these shapes and colors are, so it doesn't hurt so badly
So life doesn't hurt, doesn't hurt so badly, so life doesn't hurt, doesn't hurt so badly
Please don't look at life, look at me so sadly. Life shouldn't hurt, doesn't hurt so badly."
What the hell is that jumbled piece of shit?! Have you not had enough? Oh, is it not enough?! How about some of THIS from the ending track "Some Origin of Fire"?!
"We all are love and love is hard
We're hard to love
We all are love and love is hard
It breaks my heart
We all are love and love is hard
We're hard to love
We all are love and love is hard
So here's my heart"
It can hurt to admit that bands I like/love have fucked up, but the fact that I can review this album by just saying "it's another Angels & Airwaves album" despite them apparently trying their hardest to progress is really saying something. It's not especially good, it's not especially bad, it's just.. There. Granted, there are some good songs on here and the quality is overall good (hence the rating I've given it) but how the hell do you rate an album that's full of regurgitated "new" music that you've heard before? I can't exactly recommend it over their past two albums or anything. I'm so confused, and even more devastatingly, not in love with this album.
I could see myself really liking this album if it was the first Angels & Airwaves album I had heard, hence the rating, but I'm still pretty fuckin' disappointed, because even though it's a good bunch of songs, it's still the same bunch of songs as before. Also, there's a song on here called "Soul Survivor (...2012)" which might as well be the corniest fucking song title these guys have ever had. I just thought you should know, because I LOVE you.
7/10
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This is pretty awkward. The only place you can find for it on Amazon is it being bundled with "Love Part Two", which, yes, THERE IS A SECOND PART TO THIS ALBUM and you can't even check out the song previews, but I guess look at the other reviews and shit. I don't know, I trust you. Also, this is a really long description for a link!! What the hell is wrong with me?!
