Tom DeLonge talked with Guitar.com:

Lifeforms is another textural expedition that opens clear water between itself and the idea of DeLonge as a three-chord thrasher. “In my earlier years with Blink it was, ‘How do I create tones that let these songs sound different from each other?’ But all I was using was a distortion pedal and every once in a while a flanger,” he says. “Now, in Angels & Airwaves, there are delay pedals and synthesizers and organic oscillations from fuckin’ modular synths. I craft songs by what’s needed, not what I’m limited to. That’s the biggest difference.”