Angels & Airwaves

Reissues

Grown-up vinyl reissues from Blink-182 spin-off band.

Even pop-punk frat boys can be struck down by a severe case of The Seriousness. For Blink-182’s

Tom DeLonge that point came in the mid-00s, when he opted to ditch the band he co-founded and their fart’n’boob fixation, and reposition himself as the emo Bono.

In fairness, he came close to – ahem – pulling it off on We Don’t Need To Whisper (7/10), the debut album from his new group, Angels & Airwaves. The circling guitars of The Adventure and It Hurts spiral upwards, U2 style, though the ever-present Hanna-Barbera twang in DeLonge’s voice undercuts the heart-on-sleeve emoting. Still, it was unexpectedly affecting.

The shock of the new had disappated by the time of the follow-up, 2007’s brighter I-Empire (6/10), further undercut by DeLonge broadening his palette and losing the focus that had initially fuelled him. It wasn’t bad, but it

could have been one of a hundred bands around at the same time.

A decade-plus later, both albums are gettng a lavish vinyl reissue: lacquered, multi-colour discs (black and purple for the debut, shades of gold for the follow-up) and various expensivefeeling inserts accompanying both. It’s a properly adult experience, though not the kind you’d expect from a bloke who used to be in Blink-182.