Angels & Airwaves's just-released album Love: Part Two is the second half of the larger Love album, an album that definitely exists thematically and sonically as one whole collection of 22 songs but that also divides neatly into its two distinct parts.
Love: Part Two has a more polished, impressive resonance with catchier beats and more interesting sounds — it's essentially Part One but better. It's pure Angels & Airwaves, full of their ambient rock sound, soaring electronic melodies and wide array of instruments.
The album is a mix of anthems ("Surrender") and love songs ("My Heroine"), all examining and celebrating the power of human connection. The album brings back some of the warlike drumbeats of We Don't Need to Whisper and the uplifting mood of I-Empire but stands on its own as a new, unique release dominated by diversity of sound and almost overwhelming movement.
The songs bring in and then drop countless different sounds, instruments and melodies, especially in brief instrumental intros and outros of 20 to 30 seconds.
It's difficult at times to listen to because, when a melody is especially attractive, it's frustrating that it quickly disappears. But it is also enjoyable to move in and out of so many diverse sounds because they are, in the end, weaved together beautifully.
Despite the multitude of sounds and melodies populating each song, the album is not chaotic, although on the first listen this is the impression. Subsequent listens reveal the patterning and strength within the tracks.
Listening to the album with headphones makes the instrumental distinctions extremely apparent and intensifies the movement of the songs, setting the individual melodies into a quasi-physical realm around the listener's head. Any exhaustion induced by the hectic movements of melodies is alleviated by all the repetition you could ask for in the choral segments.
Even for listeners who truly enjoy Tom DeLonge's voice, some of the most captivating parts of the album are the instrumental segments, such as in the opening track "Saturday Love" and at the end of "Moon As My Witness." Some meander, some rise and fall, but each is a welcome pure-music minute or two.
Structurally speaking, the album never pauses between tracks. Many tracks finish off with an instrumental piece and carry it through into the beginning of the following track. Even when two consecutive tracks don't meld melodically, there is no blank pause, no between-track white space.
This makes the album structurally holistic and not shuffle-friendly; it's meant to be an intense, seamless sonic experience, and a long one at that, clocking in at about 48 minutes (the entire Love album totals about 102 minutes).
"Anxiety," the album's first single and music video, contains a strong, catchy keyboard component and an intriguing windchimes-esque intro melody that returns for the final instrumental minute of the track. DeLonge plays with his lyrics, chopping words into staccato vowels ("ti-i-ime," "di-i-ie," "insi-i-ide"). The music video visually represents the organized chaos and bombardment of diverse sounds that make up the song and the album, a seemingly frenzied but beautiful system that somehow works despite itself.
"Surrender," the album's second single, is conducive to sing along, with the growing intensity of the repeated lyrics "I, I will not surrender" and a background chant of "oh"s. DeLonge sings, "When God falls fast asleep / the kids still dance in city streets / from the White House lawn to the Middle East and all around / I'm just sayin' that this time I feel it now" — and in this song the listener really does feel it. "All That We Are," the final song on the album, kicks off with a four-note descending piano melody and has a lovely slow build. It's the slowest and quietest song of the album, which isn't to say it's quiet. After three swelling minutes a guitar joins the song and amps it up, effectively representing the synthesis of rock guitar sounds and electronic sounds that communicates and connects in this song and throughout the album. The track is a great ending to an album that works to express the diversity of human experience and the threads that connect us all.
