By: Caitlin Hoffman
For BiggerThanBeyonce.Com

When I first heard of Angels & Airwaves, I was still sweeping up the pieces of my broken heart due to Blink-182 first breaking up, and I suppose I was less than pleased that Tom Delonge had so quickly arranged a new band to dedicate himself to. Yet all I had to do was hear a few of their songs, and my broken heart was instantly sealed and swept away. They effortlessly compress beauty into synthetic melodies. The way electro-rock is combined with alternative rock interfaces perfectly, creating a ritual of trance-like musical movements that a binaural beat would be jealous of. Songs like Secret Crowds or Everything’s Magic (both from their album I-Empire released in 2007) carry the facets of both ecstasy and adoration. So, I couldn’t wait to explore what fresh element they would bring to their new album, Love.

In my opinion, it certainly lives up to its name.

Have you ever left a theatre or a conversation feeling totally stunned and lifted out of your typical biases, as if you’ve just been delivered into a new realm of consciousness? For me, music often has the ability to do that, and Angels and Airwaves is one of the bands that creates that experience. They bring a maturity and enchantment to space rock that goes unsurpassed. All of their songs create symphonic vibrations that make you feel lighter than air. They take the physical realm of music and charge every sensation with exploding droplets of idyllic dreams and hopefulness.

One of the best parts is that each song has its own unique appeal. While listening to Epic Holiday, you’ll be chased by urges to drop the daily exhaustion of life and retreat into the unknown. Meanwhile, Young London easily helps one find light within the darkness of some cramped club, and Hallucinations creates a nostalgia for memories that haven’t been created yet. Like any epiphany, this album has its strong points and its weak points. Still, as soon as one song stops, you find the silence cannot match the pleasure the music brought you.

These guys can really harness the potency of music; their songs have such emotional power that they have the ability to inspire someone to imagine a better world, and perhaps even work towards shaping that vision into a sparkling reality. While you let yourself get drenched in this album, your head may be filled with images of long, unbroken highways, or the delightful thought of breakthroughs occurring in the minds of the young.

Amazingly, the visionary charge doesn’t stop with the album; Angels and Airwaves is also working on a film of the same name, due to come out sometime this spring. As Tom says of the album and the accompanying film, “It’s the biggest release of my life, the pinnacle of my creativity.”

It’s clear Tom has a vision, and he wants to share it with everyone.

Join in the magic below.

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