Rockdizmusic.com photo: ‘Love, Pt. 2’ does not match up to the three previous albums AVA has released to date.Following right on the heels of Blink-182’s new release, Tom DeLonge swaps hats for the latest Angels & Airwaves offering.

“Love, Pt. 2” comes as the follow-up to “Love,” originally released in 2009. It picks up right where AVA left off: bombastic guitar riffs mingled with futuristic keyboards and DeLonge’s thoughtful lyrics.

The simplistic title is quite self-explanatory—the album delves further into the phenomenon of human relationships, as all the songs hearken back to a theme of necessary interconnectedness.

That being said, there is not a lot of variety here.

Save for a handful of unique compositions and catchy melodies, the chord progression and spacey synthesizer motifs sound the same through much of the latter half of the album.

The elaborate and crafty song composition is lacking compared to previous AVA albums.

It is not that any of the songs are bad; it is just that many fail to rise above the status of mere mediocrity.

The album does begin quite promising, though, with three strong tracks.

“Saturday Love” is an excellent ode to innocent, young love and is easily the best song on the album. This notion can easily be seen in the chorus: “I wait sixteen, a Saturday, love/ My heart beats fast and faraway love/ Your eyes so pure they never grow up/ You stay with me, we’ll never grow up, my love.”

There is a longing for those tender years with Saturday night dates and first loves—a feeling that many can resonate with.

The subsequent track, “Surrender,” is then followed up by another excellent song: “Anxiety.”

Again, the song hits heavy upon the importance of human relationships of all sorts. The idea is that we are “passengers” in the universe whose significance is determined by our interactions with those around us.

This is the central dogma that both the “Love” albums hinge around—our social interactions are where true meaning lies.

Aside from these three opening tracks, there is not much that stands out.

“Behold a Pale Horse” is somewhat interesting in that it could easily be mistaken for a Journey anthem. The arena rock riffs and Revelation-inspired lyrics make for a good listen toward an otherwise bland second half of the album.

“Love, Pt. 2” is not a bad album by any means. It complements “Love” very well and has quite a few well-intentioned lyrics throughout.

However, it just does not match up to the three previous albums AVA has released to date.