Love Part Two
When Tom DeLonge, always the more emo half of Blink-182, launched Angels and Airwaves in 2005, he sacrificed all the small things for jumbo themes, important-band bombast and Eighties-sounding synths. The group’s fourth studio disc soars ever closer to the sun, with defiant nonsense about bombs falling at dancing kids’ feet (lead single “Surrender”) and one track inexplicably inspired by the Book of Revelation (the punchy “Behold a Pale Horse”). Want fun? Repeat lines like “The ice is really cold/The streetlights, really old” out loud. Slow builds and sly, Edge-style guitar prod these dark songs into vaguely exultant shapes. The only problem: There’s nothing here to be triumphant about.
Listen to “One Last Thing”:
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