Angels & Airwaves - All That’s Left is Love
“All That’s Left is Love” is the most recently released single by the band Angels & Airwaves, the current musical project from former blink-182 co-frontman Tom Delonge. With touring on hold and a new album in production, Angels & Airwaves decided to drop a third new song recently and it is easy to tell this particular song was handpicked for a quick release because of its lyrical content and its relation to current world events.
At its core, “All That’s Left is Love” is an uplifting call to action, a plea to continue to push through the bad times and love one another. Lyrically it echoes back to a lot of Tom’s previous work with Angels & Airwaves; I was most reminded of “Secret Crowds” from the band’s album I Empire, though instead of Tom trying to build his own ideal world, “All That’s Left is Love” is more grounded in the reality that we currently live in during the COVID-19 pandemic. The new song is still a call to spread love but Delonge is much more tender and sympathetic in his delivery of that message than he was with “Secret Crowds”; I think this different tone helps the song resonate in a way that appropriately matches the way many of us across the world are feeling right now.
Angels & Airwaves performing. Image credit: Joaquin Cabello. www.be.net/joaquinxcabello
Sonically, I did not enjoy this song as much as the other two songs Angels & Airwaves has released leading up to their new album, “Rebel Girl” and “Kiss & Tell”, which are both a bit more interesting, complex and heavy instrumentally. Though in many ways “All That’s Left is Love” instrumentally sounds like a track that could have come from I Empire, it just fails to hit the way most of the mid-tempo songs from that record did; perhaps this is because the production is more in line with more recent Angels & Airwaves releases like The Dream Walker and Chasing Shadows. This slight mismatch in musical style and production style may be why the song sounds decent enough but just not quite as good as it could be.
In the end, through Angels & Airwaves, Tom Delonge has always had a genuine way of letting his listeners know that there is always something beautiful to find in the world and that if you can’t find that beautiful thing today, there is always a new tomorrow; if we work together and love one another, we can make the world a better place than it is today. Although I was left unimpressed by the overall way “All That’s Left is Love” sounds, the message truly resonates with me and I believe it is a brilliantly well-timed and relevant release that may be able to help us a bit during these dire times.