I'm in Circuit City a couple weekends back, and I'm browsing the new releases display: lots of bands I've never heard of, many being sold at a bargain "discovery" price that says C'mon, take a chance on me! Among this batch is a disc that's even cheaper than the $9.95 releases: AFI's Sing the Sorrow (DreamWorks Records), which is going for $6.50. I pick the disc up and look it over twice: title's pretty iffy and the artsy black cover with falling leaves is also pretty suspicious. But I ultimately buy it, figuring why not take a shot? How bad can it be? I think.
Turns out: pretty bad. AFI, I later learn from their website, blends punk, goth and art rock - with a heavy accent on the latter. Soon as I hear the portentous synth sounds, the whispery/shriek background vocals and the rotely rhythmic scrotum-straining vocalist, I realize. I'm listening to Rush! Hear vocalist Davey Havok channeling Geddy Lee, and it's like you're stuck on some AOR station from hell. Sure, they add some shrieks to the mix, but the sound and structure of "The Leaving Song Part Two" (you can tell they're arty because they program Part Two ahead of One on the disc!) remind me of everything I loathed and detested about 70's prog rock: its absolute refusal to move and fatuous sense of self-importance, its elevation of production sound and "musicianship" over poppishness, its dopey fake poetry.
A few songs have some punkish propulsion: "Bleed Black," for instance, starts out zippy then slogs into a mucky break that once more gets me gritting my teeth. When the song returns to its original speedo tempo, I'm so peeved I want nothing more to do with it.
Article comments
1 - Jeff Petermann
this is not their best CD. In fact, it is their worst. Go and buy "The Art of Drowning".
AFI, in general, own.
2 - Sean Hackbarth
It can't be like Rush unless there are 10+ words in the lyrics that end with "-tion."
It's easy to rip on Rush for their 2112 days but they're soooo far away from pro-rock pretentionness. Their latest "Vapor Trails" is tight, muscular and intelligent.
But thanks for the warning about AFI.
3 - issa
jesus. that's terrible.
i'm a Rush fan but recently hearing AFI because of mere curiosity. besides the androginy of the voice and the intense vibe that most bands displays, i never thought of afi as a branch of one of the fathers of the prog rock. their riffs are too repetitives and -as Sherman stated- the lyrics are too corny and even dumb at times, not comparing to Rush, lyrically and musically virtued, with few exceptions.
and i agree with jeff petermann: no matter the failed attempts of the AFI kiddos to throw themselves into "rock", Sing the Sorrow is definitely not their best CD. even so, their best one could only barely scratch Power Windows, one of the worst [if not it] albums of Rush.