Tom DeLonge Needs To Get Out More

I’ve followed the career of Tom Delonge ever since he extracted all of the talent from Blink 182 and went his own way. I enjoyed his first side project, Boxcar Racer, and would call myself a fan of his latest band Angels & Airwaves. When DeLonge got married and had kids it didn’t bother me either because I knew this guy was determined to make the big planetarium rock that would fit in a John Hughes teen drama. Angels & Airwaves is like “Salisbury Hill” with better guitar. And the newly minted family man DeLonge was bound to hit some themes I could get into.

Angels & Airwaves is starry sky rock at its best and when Tom has the guitars frothing at the mouth it can be pure bliss. Angels & Airwaves make the sort of music that scares the crap out of you when you turn on your car because you can’t believe how loud you let it get the last time you were in there. The trouble with Angels & Airwaves is Tom seems to have lost his ability to taper the music. He’s become indulgent and perhaps a bit out of touch. The music sounds like it comes from a guy who has a studio in his house and doesn’t have to answer to anyone –there’s no fit or finish. Case in point “True Love” is a nifty little song that takes two minutes just to get going.

Many of the songs on I-Empire include two-minute intros and lots of meandering guitar twinkle. If I was playing a video game and this was the score-it’d be fine. But I’m not. I bought an album and I expect the songs to have a little more discipline.

DeLonge always has killer pedals going on his guitar. The opener “Call to Arms” is classic, cinematic Angels & Airwaves and a good way to start. Track two “Everything’s Magic” adds some sound effects and a little pace to take us closer to a single.

A big problem with I-Empire is the first three tracks don’t bring much to the cake mix. It’s mostly whiney vocal, sound effects, and just a tease of guitar. “Breathe” has some cool 1980’s drum effect, but it sounds too unfinished.

“Love Like Rockets” starts the countdown as we hear the familiar walkie-talkie crackle and get closer to what makes Angels & Airwaves one of my favorite new bands. When DeLonge gets the guitar going like a helicopter, Angels & Airwaves music can have all the drama of Cape Canaveral. “Love Like Rockets” should get points for the title alone and is a fun little song. It sounds like the sort of thing you’d want playing on a hot summer night in a convertible. “The stars in your eyes light up the skies” chorus even has a little Bono thing going on. Angels & Airwaves has a heavy U2 influence from DeLonge’s guitar to the “oh ay oh” sing-a-long choruses.

But unlike the last Angels & Airwaves record We Don’t Need to Whisper which gave us “The Adventure,” “The War (theme from MTV’s Two-A-Days),” and “Distraction” –the only must have track off I-Empire is “Secret Crowds.” After a somewhat needless thirty-second intro, “Secret Crowds” leaves the atmosphere on the back of DeLonge’s power chords. This is a massive pump up song for your collection. “Secret Crowds” is straight up black t-shirt rock. The core idea of the album is here as DeLonge talks about his I-Empire (“If I had my own world”) where he world “spread love like violence.” And the “Let me feel you carry you higher . . .secret crowds rise up and gather” even has a little “We Will Rock You” beat that had me banging the roof of the Wrangler. This is the sort of song Jack Black’s character would have broke a piece of chalk telling the kids about in School of Rock. It’s simply that good.

Trouble is there isn’t much else here on I-Empire. “Secret Crowds” craps bigger than the rest of the record. Overall I worry about Angels & Airwaves. The music is so out of touch that I think DeLonge might be fading. We’ve reached the true fan-stage of his career. The hardcore like myself will be able to pull a great song out of every album, and not much more. And until Delonge hooks up with some other talent I don’t see much more happening. But with the right supporting cast DeLonge could make a big dent on the scene. Selfishly I’d love to see Delonge get picked up in some sort of rock and roll super group in the spirit of Audioslave and Velvet Revolver for his guitar and his mind. The man gets music. Otherwise he’ll just make six-minute songs like “Heaven” which sound like the distortion pedal version of a guy watching his life projected in Super 8 on the wall in the dark.

“Lifeline” is an interesting song if for no other reason that it makes the best use of DeLonge’s eternally 17 angst ridden vocal and pulls it across a nice wingspan. “If you wish it wish it now. If you wish it wish it loud” and the familiar “yo oh oh oh” anthem is solid. “Rite of Spring” starts out like a Poison guitar riff but ultimately disappoints as the glam is quickly replaced with melancholy. But it is a nice personal story and his “chance for a better life” gives a glimpse of a genuine nice guy in rock and roll.

The Target version of the CD comes with two bonus tracks including an acoustic version of Angel & Airwaves first hit “The Adventure.” It’s painful to listen to and I can’t imagine how this version made it onto the record. My only explanation is someone has Punk’d DeLonge. All it does is reinforce how much help DeLonge needs with his vocal in post-production because the raw track sounds horrible. It’s like tone deaf Violent Femmes, it’s truly awful stuff.

In summary, I’m a fan of Mr. Delonge. His music makes music videos in my head. But if the man doesn’t get some help I worry that’s about as far as Angels & Airwaves will go.