Melodic Soft Tones from Post Punk Guru’s AFI By: Shaun Hinklein

            Crash Love, AFI’s most recent album,
will immediately differ in fans pretenses due to the newly adopted
methodologies the band has taken in writing tracks on the record. I am not
going to start out by introducing the band AFI. AFI (A Fire Inside) has helped
develop the infrastructure of modern rock by elaborating all their sounds into
genres depicting the current generation they happen to approach. Though The Art of Drowning, we found an
aggressive placebo to masquerade original, wonderfully orchestrated
masterpieces with such a full-throttle sound they would captivate listeners. In
Sing The Sorrow, audiences glorified
themselves in the majestic, theatrical overtures the band encompassed through
stretched-out vocal patterns and newly adopted instrumentation. Crash Love holds strong in the sense
that the band has graced themselves in a new direction while presenting this
album to their loyal fan base, however, in adopting a modern rock sound, they
might have sacrificed what truly made them genuine from album to album.

            The
radio friendly ‘Beautiful Thieves’ is major chords, charismatic vocals, and a
catchy hook proceeding for three minutes until it is engrained into the
listeners skull. Though respected in the world of today and much appreciated by
the casual passerby, AFI devotees might show doubt in recognizing the single as
proof of the bands true potential. The album shows AFI’s unfailing stature of
embracing a new, specific genre, though hypocritically comes up short in an
attempt to present something new. “Cold Hands” proves this relentlessly. Bands
within the past few years have adopted the working formula that will reward
them within the industry to the consumer and the profiteer. AFI, not concerned
of either, merely stray from a guideline due to their creativeness and
ingenuity. The only problem with this is that similar sounds have existed for
quite some time—and though this may be a new step for the band themselves—we,
listeners, have heard this music before. It is not expected of a long awaited
album by such a behemoth band such as AFI.

            I
found that their variance, for the first time I can recall, was found to credit
them a disservice rather than award them with originality. Listening to this
record made me miss the wondrous undertones within “Silver and Cold” or “The
Leaving Song.” These new tracks seem recycled with similar lyrics presenting
likely situations underneath drone music which has been heard before by bands
years ago. Though this musical approach is new to AFI, it is not new to us.
Respective fans of the bands courageous musical change might blind themselves
to the redundancy of Crash Love. It
is not a bad record, but it would be hard to believe it was an AFI record if
not for the deafening vocals of Davey Havok. The vocalist has always impressed
me from the days of Shut Your Mouth and
Open Your Eyes. Although he is impressive, it cannot be just him to carry
the new sound for a new generation. As they’ve adapted to the market through December Underground (arguably their
least favorable album), they have adapted to their own taste for mediocrity.