As leader of Blink 182 for over a decade, Tom DeLonge was responsible for the whole pop/punk movement which spawned a whole host of tattooed purveyors of toilet humour such as Sum 41, Good Charlotte, and in its ultimate sanitised form, Busted. DeLonge's new band sees him gathering together members of Boxcar Racer, The Distillers and The Offspring to form Angels & Airwaves - a kind of pop/punk Raconteurs if you will.
Any ageing skaters expecting a carbon copy of Blink though are likely to be disappointed. This is much more serious and intense than DeLonge's previous work, having an anthemic, stadium rock quality. There's a massive nod towards U2, especially in the Edge-like guitar riffs and DeLonge's impassioned vocals, while the lyrics also show a welcome maturity, turning on a killer hook of "I cannot live i cant breathe unless you do this with me...life's waiting to begin".
DeLonge has already talked up the forthcoming album up as "the best music made in decades" - that's rather stretching it, but The Adventure is a pleasant surprise for all of us left cold by Blink 182's music. This is quality stadium rock, and the forthcoming album We Don't Need To Whisper should be worth a listen.
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