AVA General Discussion

[Monkey Chips]

In a 11 days it's gonna be the two year anniversary for Lifeforms...

That was a pretty cool album, I still go back to it every once in awhile with it having some great tunes on there.

[Ghost]

Same here. The ones that didn't stood the time for me were the LOVE records.

[Monkey Chips]

Yeah, L)VE was a mess... I think it was hurt by a few things.

1) Tom was spreading himself between blink-182 and AvA (blink getting one album and AvA getting TWO ALBUMS) and also making a score for the L)VE film so obviously some sacrifices had to be made.

2) Compared to the other albums (except for that one EP you were supposed to read alongside a book), the L)VE albums were tied in someway to a film of the same name so Tom was restricting himself creatively as well.

3) Tom was at a point where AvA was running out of steam in their current formation. Not even sure how the band would have turned out if Ilan and his brother didn't get involved and breath life into Tom's music for the future after the L)VE albums.

Shame we had to lose some band members post L)VE (like Atom Willard and Matt Wachter), but we also gained some cool tunes afterwards.

[Monkey Chips]

It's the two year!

Here's my favorite track from Lifeforms that I go back to:

It was really cool seeing Tom have fun with making music videos again and the tune is really cool too.

[Monkey Chips]

Not sure if anyone is interested, but someone did a cover song that mashed up "The Adventure" and "Love Like Rockets"

Very interesting job they did there. Also cool that the person that plays guitar in this video is left handed.

Also wanted to add a cool blink-182 remix

 

Edited October 9, 2023 by Monkey Chips
Added a blink-182 remix

[Flyswatter96]

Am I the only one that thinks the Reimagined version of Young London is criminally underrated/better than the original?

[NerdWallet]

AVA

[Paparazzi Magnet]

On 10/17/2023 at 6:54 PM, Flyswatter96 said:

Am I the only one that thinks the Reimagined version of Young London is criminally underrated/better than the original?

Where can I find this?

[Monkey Chips]

4 hours ago, Paparazzi Magnet said:

Where can I find this?

I could be wrong, but I think they might be talking about this:

 

[Flyswatter96]

11 hours ago, Monkey Chips said:

I could be wrong, but I think they might be talking about this:

 

Yep that’s it! It’s so out of left field, I love it!

[Ghost]

On 9/15/2023 at 9:30 AM, Monkey Chips said:

Yeah, L)VE was a mess... I think it was hurt by a few things.

1) Tom was spreading himself between blink-182 and AvA (blink getting one album and AvA getting TWO ALBUMS) and also making a score for the L)VE film so obviously some sacrifices had to be made.

2) Compared to the other albums (except for that one EP you were supposed to read alongside a book), the L)VE albums were tied in someway to a film of the same name so Tom was restricting himself creatively as well.

3) Tom was at a point where AvA was running out of steam in their current formation. Not even sure how the band would have turned out if Ilan and his brother didn't get involved and breath life into Tom's music for the future after the L)VE albums.

Shame we had to lose some band members post L)VE (like Atom Willard and Matt Wachter), but we also gained some cool tunes afterwards.

Yeah, I don't know. I though Tom was on the track of something interesting and big between WDNTW and I-Empire. The second one has fantastic songs. Call To Arms, Love Like Rockets, Star of Bethlehem, Heaven... absolute top tier AvA. You can pick the best WDNTW and I-Empire songs and you have a hell of an album there. Then he got more grandiloquent and started the whole Love 1&2 project along with the movie. I think he lost it there. Too big and kind of fell flat. Then he sort of recovered in The Dream Walker and Lifeforms, both interesting and diverse records. You can feel Rubin's input. Also, the instrumental EPs were really surprising. I like them a lot.

One thing I can see clearly: once Tom gets really focused withouth pretending, he just nails the hell out of it. When he starts to think too much wide and big by himself, he just dilutes.

[Monkey Chips]

Saw this on the AvA subreddit...

I know people will disagree with the youtuber's conclusions, but thought it would be fun to share nonetheless:

 

[Monkey Chips]

I was feeling a bit bored so I somehow came across this... I know not everyone is a fan of AvA (I'm just a casual fan that prefers blink-182 to them), but I found this an interesting watch like the interview he did for 'One More Time' with interesting insight.

That being said... I wish Aaron was around during the L)VE era because it sounds like he saved 'Automatic' from being another 'Saturday Love' because from what he said Tom was going to rip off 'I Melt with You' by Modern English like how he ripped off 'Video Killed The Radio Star' by The Buggles and he thankfully stopped Tom from doing that.

 

[twentytwenty]

Love Saturday love 

[Patient #48273]

28 minutes ago, Drunk said:

The AVA Movement forum doesn't exist anymore? 

Are you looking for somewhere to start over?

[Neal]

After seeing those x-mas party pics i had a listen to the last two ava records, and damn they still hold up quite well. Now that the friendship between mark and tom is repaired i‘d be down for tom to do another record with ilan. OMT was cool, but pretty meh after the excitement of the reunion wore off. 
 

mercenaries is peak tom with great production. 
 

that being said: no more guns is the absolute worst thing tom has ever put out

[Kay]

Gee, I wonder why

https://www.reddit.com/r/AngelsAndAirwaves/s/BWlHalF5py 

[whales]

On 1/25/2025 at 5:06 AM, Kay said:

Gee, I wonder why

https://www.reddit.com/r/AngelsAndAirwaves/s/BWlHalF5py 

the older i get, the more i can see how weak the song writing was in earlier records especially. Tom desperately needed a proper producer to help him reign in his worst qualities.

that said, i still love AVA for 2 reason:
1. nostalgia
2. i do think Tom's vision is clear. you can tell he's making what he wanted to make, holding nothing back. and i enjoy the simplicity of that experience. while the LOVE albums are fairly critiqued for being rehashes, i'd actually argue they're more coherent and polished from start to finish compared to WDNTW and I-Empire. that's not a knock on those because i love them, but he fully ran with the space rock thing in a way that holds up pretty well.

i really like Lifeforms, but I think it has less of an identity than earlier records do. whether that's good or not probably depends on personal preference. i also just don't care for the Rubin style of production, including when it shows up on certain blink songs. AVA is raw Tom work, like it or hate it, but it was never going to be mainstream because he needs others to turn that stuff into gold.

[Ghost]

On 2/13/2025 at 4:26 PM, whales said:

the older i get, the more i can see how weak the song writing was in earlier records especially. Tom desperately needed a proper producer to help him reign in his worst qualities.

that said, i still love AVA for 2 reason:
1. nostalgia
2. i do think Tom's vision is clear. you can tell he's making what he wanted to make, holding nothing back. and i enjoy the simplicity of that experience. while the LOVE albums are fairly critiqued for being rehashes, i'd actually argue they're more coherent and polished from start to finish compared to WDNTW and I-Empire. that's not a knock on those because i love them, but he fully ran with the space rock thing in a way that holds up pretty well.

i really like Lifeforms, but I think it has less of an identity than earlier records do. whether that's good or not probably depends on personal preference. i also just don't care for the Rubin style of production, including when it shows up on certain blink songs. AVA is raw Tom work, like it or hate it, but it was never going to be mainstream because he needs others to turn that stuff into gold.

That's the reason blink works so well. Mark and Tom work as a perfect duo in terms of composition. They keep each other's balance. I always though that the two first AvA records had potential HUGE blink songs if Mark would have had the chance to participate in them with some producer's help. A few come to mind: Valkyrie Missile, The War, The Adventure, The Gift, Start The Machine, It Hurts, Love Like Rockets, Call To Arms, Heaven, Secret Crowds and Star Of Bethlehem.

Don't get me wrong. I like them for what they are, but I think they could have become huge blink songs.

And if you pay attention to BCR, which also was Tom being Tom, it was way more concrete because Finn was the producer.

[_Kyle_]

https://interscope.com/pages/interscope-vinyl-collective?srsltid=AfmBOopzlki-IDdMuEzlzp_0N3EysTPExrx6UfUtiwdsVeeTuS6fTPtD

thought this was pretty rad.