On my second listen of We Don’t Need to Whisper today. Haven’t listened to the full album in years, but I still think it holds up, even if it’s all nostalgia. I can distinctly remember laying on my parents’ couch and listening (going to age myself) on my walkman for the first time. Valkyrie Missile took me right back to that moment.
I visited where I grew up in the midwest and ran to Whisper and I Empire. Those records still crush when I am in the mood.
I think all the Angels albums have aged horribly minus Lifeforms, which is just…fine. My sincere apologies
IMO I Empire was the culmination of what Tom set out to do with AVA musically and lyrically that started with Whisper. LOVE 1 &2 were pretty boring and derivative (between the two there is one okay album in there), Dream Walker is a snooze aside from a couple of songs. Lifeforms is a great album to see Tom really going for it and falling back in love with being a musician and a good on-ramp for rejoining blink.
Didn’t we only get Lifeforms because Tom’s sister is on the Board of To The Stars and they were showing heavy losses and they basically advised him to make an album to stop the bleeding haha. Something like that.
WDNTW & I-Empire make up one good album imo. The rest isn’t very good. But i’m a huge fan of everything that comes after.
need to revisit. admittedly that was when I had the least interest in what tom was up to. I can’t remember the last time i listened to that record front to back.
“mercenaries,” “tunnels,” “paralyzed,” “wolfpack,” “bullets in the wind,” “kiss with a spell” all really good imo, that album drew me back into ava after the love albums left me sorta indifferent
Funny how everyone mentions Valkyrie Missile, "The Adventure" was the first song I heard from them and it drew me in. Takes me back to being 18 that summer
Yeah Dream Walker is when Ilan started being heavily involved, I love that album. Lifeforms is better though I honestly really really enjoy every AVA album to some degree