AFI: Crash Love
AFI: Crash Love
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By Lewis Bazley. |  |
Tuesday, 29, Sep 2009 11:17
DGC/Interscope, out now.
In a nutshell...
AFI aim to make it three in a row.
What's it all about?
Crash Love is AFI's eighth studio album and comes on the heels of Decemberunderground and Sing The Sorrow, both of which were certified platinum.
ead singer Davey Havok says that he has "never been more proud of an AFI record" than he is of this latest offering, which features backing vocals provided by the winners of the band's Begin Transmission contest - a competition that saw fans submit videos that were judged by the group.
Who's it by?
Hailing from Ukiah, California, AFI (or A Fire Inside, to give them their full name) have been around since 1991. Eight albums and 18 years later, the band's style has changed from hardcore punk through to a more polished emo/rock sound.
They entered the mainstream consciousness with the release of 2000's The Art of Drowning and enjoyed their first major success with 2003's Sing The Sorrow, which was led by the award-winning single Girl's Not Grey.
As an example...
"Oh! If we run this light/Take a little life/No-one will care at all/Oh! We can burn it and leave/For we are the beautiful thieves/No-one suspects at all." - Beautiful Thieves
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
AFI have taken home a couple of awards in their time and are certainly beginning to attract more mainstream attention, but I don't know if they'll be able to muscle out the likes of Green Day just yet.
What the others say
"They're not as creepy as they used to be, but they have yet to move out of the shadows, so I suspect their core fans will still be ecstatic, even as they scowl at the newer, younger audiences who have come to love the band for their newfound pop appeal." - Gregory Burkart, FEARNet
"Crash Love is an excellent effort and is arguably the best work put forth by AFI since joining a major label (Can't wait for the argument against that statement)." - Taylor Jermolajew, sputnikmusic
So is it any good?
Crash Love is a step in the right direction for AFI. As a fan, I was really disappointed by Decemberunderground. It felt overproduced and over-polished, it lacked energy and didn't sound like it was created by the band who gave us gems like Totalimmortal, God Called In Sick Today and Morningstar.
A lot of critics have said that AFI have learned from the mistakes that were made with Decemberunderground and I'd have to agree with them. While Crash Love is by no means Black Sails In The Sunset version 2.0, it offers more of a 'traditional' AFI sound than Decemberunderground does, and will probably attract more praise from old school AFI fans than the band's last offering. But what do I know? I'm just jealous I didn't win the Begin Transmission competition.
Beautiful Thieves is great and while it doesn't offer the same vintage Havok screaming that some AFI fans might still be clamouring for, it's worth the price of album on its own. And the guitar solo in Medicate is awesome.
8/10
John Brunskill