''The Dream Walker'' is the fifth studio album by
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
band
Angels & Airwaves
Angels & Airwaves (also written as Angels and Airwaves; stylized and abbreviated as ΛVΛ) is an American rock band, comprising Tom DeLonge (lead vocals, guitars, keyboards), David Kennedy (guitars, keyboards), Ilan Rubin (drums, keyboards, b ...
, released on December 9, 2014, through
To the Stars.
The album marks major changes in the band's lineup and production, as it is their first album to feature drummer
Ilan Rubin
Ilan Rubin (born July 7, 1988) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He is known primarily for playing drums with bands such as Nine Inch Nails, Paramore, and Angels & Airwaves. In 2008 he formed The New Regime, in which he sings and ...
, the first since ''
We Don't Need to Whisper
''We Don't Need to Whisper'' is the debut studio album by the American rock band Angels & Airwaves. Recorded at Neverpants Ranch in San Diego, California, and produced by guitarist and vocalist Tom DeLonge, the album was released on May 23, 20 ...
'' to not feature bassist
Matt Wachter
Matthew Walter "Matt" Wachter (born January 5, 1976) is an American musician best known for playing bass in the alternative rock bands Thirty Seconds to Mars and Angels & Airwaves.
Biography
Wachter was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. As a ch ...
and the only album not to feature guitarist David Kennedy. It is also their first without longtime producer, Jeff “Critter” Newell, who died in 2012. It is instead co-produced by DeLonge and Aaron Rubin.
Originally intended to be titled ''Poet'', ''The Dream Walker'' proved to be a remarkable shift in style from progressive styles to a rawer sounding alternative rock. Lyrically, it is a concept album that focuses heavily on exploring and understanding dreams. The album was recorded entirely by DeLonge and Rubin, who both took on multiple instruments during the process. On May 4, 2016, the band released a new album consisting entirely of demos from ''The Dream Walker'' studio sessions including older takes and five previously unreleased tracks.
Background
Coming into recording with Rubin as the band's new drummer, DeLonge wanted to "do something that is a left turn from what people know of Angels and Airwaves," while also being eager to explore the concept of dreams for a long time. Following the Love project, he felt that many of the songs had begun to sound the same, and wanted to take a major shift in style by bringing in new people for the songwriting and production. This resulted in DeLonge and Rubin being the only composers on the album, while also bringing in Rubin's brother, Aaron, as the band's new producer.
Much of ''The Dream Walker's'' recording focused on DeLonge and Rubin learning about how each other record. This resulted in letting Rubin do most of the composition while DeLonge acted as the primary lyricist, but also acted as a co-composer. During the production, DeLonge heavily praised Rubin's talent as a musician:
“Ilan is the best multi-instrumentalist I’ve met in my life. He plays drums with Nine Inch Nails and he’s an incredible drummer, but he’s better at guitar than I am and he’s the best piano player that I’ve ever seen in my life! I grew up in a punk rock scene that was built as a vehicle to express emotion, but Ilan grew up as a fanboy of Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and Queen. When you mix those two worlds together, musically it became much more diverse. Ilan is the kind of guy that’ll sit there and read a manual until 4 in the morning on how to create his own synthesizer sound through a bunch of oscillators and I’m the kind of guy that’ll throw a bunch of paint on a canvas and go, ‘Wow, that’s fucking cool!’ so we’re polar opposites and I think that’s why we became a really good pairing.” - Tom DeLonge
Much of this recording process was documented for a video series on the band's YouTube channel.
While Kennedy and new bassist,
Eddie Breckenridge
Thrice is an American rock band from Irvine, California, formed in 1998. The group was founded by guitarist/vocalist Dustin Kensrue and lead guitarist Teppei Teranishi while they were in high school.
Early in their career, the band was known ...
, were not part of the process, DeLonge confirmed that they were still involved with the band, but via non-recording duties.
Release
''The Dream Walker'' was a part of a multimedia project titled Poet Anderson, which also included a comic book, short film, novel, and the band's following EP ''
...Of Nightmares.''
The project was officially announced on October 6, 2014 with the release of the album's promotional single, "Paralyzed." This announcement also included a teaser for October 31 of that year, which would be the beginning of official releases for the project.
This eventually became the release of the album's first single, "The Wolfpack," on that day, which was followed by its corresponding music video on November 14, 2014.
Additional singles, "Bullets in the Wind" and "Tunnels", were released on November 17, 2014 and December 3, 2014 respectively.
The short film that coincides with the album, ''
Poet Anderson: The Dream Walker'', premiered on November 14 at the Toronto International Short Film Festival, for which it won Best Animation.
Critical reception
''The Dream Walker'' received generally positive reviews from
music critics
Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...
. At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a
weighted average
The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 66, based on 6 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" feedback.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occ ...
of
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
rated the album three out of five stars, writing that it has "more texture and dimension than Love and, ultimately, it's that expansiveness that gives the album character instead of the convoluted cross-platform narratives."
Tom Connick of ''
DIY
"Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and semi ...
'' unfavorably described the album as "little more than an extended yawn of
spacey synths".
Commercial performance
The Dream Walker debuted at number 39 on the
''Billboard'' 200 with first week sales of 19,088 copies in the United States.
Track listing
Personnel
Credits adapted from
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
Angels & Airwaves
*
Tom DeLonge – lead vocals, guitar,
synths
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and f ...
, bass guitar, producer
*
Ilan Rubin
Ilan Rubin (born July 7, 1988) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He is known primarily for playing drums with bands such as Nine Inch Nails, Paramore, and Angels & Airwaves. In 2008 he formed The New Regime, in which he sings and ...
– drums, percussion, piano, bass guitar, synths, guitar, backing vocals
Additional personnel
* Aaron Rubin – producer,
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...
,
mixing
*
Tom Lord-Alge
Tom Lord-Alge (born January 17, 1963) is an American music engineer and mixer. He began his career at The Hit Factory in New York. Subsequently, he was the resident mixer at what used to be known as "South Beach Studios", located on the ground f ...
– mixing
*
Alan Moulder
Alan Moulder (born 11 June 1959) is an English record producer, mixing engineer, and audio engineer.
Early life
Moulder was born on 11 June 1959 in Boston, Lincolnshire. He was educated at Boston Grammar School. He had an interest in music from ...
– mixing
*
Brian Gardner
Brian Knapp Gardner, also known as Brian "Big Bass" Gardner, is an American mastering engineer. He has worked on a number of recordings since the mid-1960s, including classic rock, funk, disco, alternative rock, R&B, hip hop, pop punk and dance- ...
–
mastering
Charts
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dream Walker
2014 albums
Angels & Airwaves albums
Geffen Records albums
Albums produced by Tom DeLonge
Concept albums