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Angels and Airwaves – The Wolfpack – Review

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Angels and Airwaves were always destined for big things according to Tom DeLonge, who infamously claimed that the band’s first release would represent “the best music in generations”. Though you may think that attempting to live up to such a statement exemplifies the height of ambition, the band’s fifth studio album now seeks to push the bar even higher.

‘The Dream Walker’ is just one component of a much larger, multimedia venture which spans an array of different formats and mediums, telling the story of one ‘Poet Anderson’, the Dream Walker himself. With regards to the magnitude of the project, DeLonge explains that he “felt it was time to try a bit harder, and create something that was more than just an album”.

Debut single ‘The Wolfpack’ is, both musically and thematically, in keeping with AvA’s previous releases, featuring catchy pop choruses, a wholesome infusion of electronica, and lyrics that concern themselves with the social and cultural zeitgeist of our era, all built upon a solid foundation of contemporary rock influences. However, it also represents a certain element of evolution for the band. The ultimate purpose of the inception of Angels and Airwaves was to form an “art project that [represented] a collection of artists… where [they] could communicate scenes of human behaviour along different mediums”, and ‘The Dream Walker’ finally represents the realisation of those ideals.

In addition to the album, ‘Poet Anderson, The Dream Walker’ will feature in a novel written by New York Time’s best-selling author Suzanne Young, a short anime, and a series of graphic novels, each of which is intended to “stand on its own individually, as well as within the entirety of its parts”, according to DeLonge.

While ‘The Wolfpack’ does, indeed, share many similarities with prior singles, it cannot be said that Angels and Airwaves have simply rested upon their laurels with their latest effort. Illustrating the most notable differences between this album and the last, ‘The Wolfpack’ features a much darker, and much more prominent, brand of electronic affectations which comprise both the lead melody and the base chord structure. Additionally, Tom’s vocals appear much cleaner and more controlled than they have in the past, with a much more compelling emphasis placed on the lower registers, resulting in timbres that contribute both aesthetically and tonally to the piece.

‘The Wolfpack’ represents the first exciting and intriguing chapter in the story of Poet Anderson, and yet another ambitious artistic innovation for Tom DeLonge. ‘The Dream Walker’ will be released on December 9th via To the Stars Records, and the project’s remaining components released in succession thereafter.

J.Batchford

Editor
Editor of LLR since 2005

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