I can, without a doubt, say that this is one of the strangest and toughest reviews I’ve had to do. AFI are a band that have always surprised me, even after becoming pretty familiar with them even before considering this release. On the one hand, this is the new album from a band that have recently signed to a major label, a band with an incredibly hardcore devoted following who scream along to every word in a hail of screaming melodies. The last couple of albums from AFI have been in the harcore vein, with a stripped down sound that is conducive to the powerful messages that Davey Havok seems to kill himself over in each song, full of soaring choruses and lightning-fast guitars. Or you could class this as the major label debut for a band who have paid their dues for years and have now been lucky enough (‘lucky’, depending on your perspective) to work with Butch Vig and a shitload of money. The one thing I will say definitively about ‘Sing The Sorrow’ is that you simply cannot make a judgement too soon.
On first listening to this collection of songs I kept listening intently, waiting for the moment when I’d catch a sniff of the old AFI that I love so dearly. I kept expecting a chorus of ‘woah woah’s and a drum beat that could kill a small horse. But after the disc stopped spinning I was still left unfulfilled, and that’s the reaction from other AFI fans who I spoke to on first exposure to this album. ‘Miseria Cantare- The Beginning’ sounds like a gothic Terminator 2 theme and the slow pace of ‘The Leaving Song Pt II’ hinted at the band who had been responsible for two of the greatest live experiences of my life. Still nothing.
It was only on the third or fourth listen to ‘Bleed Black’ that it all clicked and made sense. This was the exact same band who recorded ‘Answer This…’ etc, the same band who recorded ‘TotalImmortal’. The sound is different, but unmistakable. What pulls ‘Sing The Sorrow’ together is the sheer quality of the lyrics and music, and one cursory glance at the gorgeous inlay proves that Davey, Jade, Hunter and Adam are still Davey, Jade, Hunter and Adam. No other band could have made the gloriously bleak soundscapes of ‘Death of Seasons’ or the misleading meldoic misery of ‘Silver and Cold’. The themes and style are identical, but radically different in execution.
Many of the accusations levelled at this album rest upon the apparent reliance on new technologies, hitherto unexplored on an AFI album. The techno-like beats and drum machines are unexpected, and sometimes clumsy. However, as with the rest of the album they soon fit in after being given repeated listenings. Yet it doesn’t matter how many new toys the band have experimented with, there is not a single other group on Earth who can make “I remember a place I used to go. Chrysanthemums of white, they seemed so beautiful” (‘The Great Disappointment’) sound so perfectly desolate and beautiful. ‘The Leaving Song’ had got a sound that is so distinctive that I still haven’t managed to find a comparison for it, but it’s a simple, raw lament with some of the most amazing lyrics I’ve ever heard (or read). I’ve always been astonished at the lyrics of AFI songs, and this album does not disappoint in that sector. Alienation and destruction of beauty are commonly revisited topics, yet never sound clichéd.
Basically, I apologise for the sheer ramblingness of this review. I’ve found this album to be such a huge difference in what I expected and what I received, yet still think it’s a masterpiece. Not everyone will like it, and many will detest it. I purposely haven’t commented on how ‘punk’ it is (if you would like to have a faux-elitist sell-out argument, please fuck off) because that’s not the point. The point is that AFI are a band like no other, and if you scratch beneath the huge sound and massive sonic differences you’ll find that the band are the same. Stunning is an apt word in this case.
Ben