After releasing AFI’s spectacle of an album, Sing the Sorrow, the band felt they had to introduce their newer listeners their old sound and have their older listeners reflect upon the prominence of it. Even though they left out a handful of magnificent tracks, this is still a decent overview of AFI back in the Nitro days.
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Originally Posted by AFI
While we're really proud of our history and accomplishments we feel our career is really just getting started and feel slightly embarrassed by anything that hints at retrospect. There's plenty of time for that later when we're old. We'd rather move forward....
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Odd thing to say, considering that it’s the albums like Black Sails in the Sunset and The Art of Drowning that virtually made their career.
Anyways, the retrospective opens up with a great song known as The Lost Souls from The Art of Drowning. It’s good, since it goes straight to the good music instead of having to listen to that pointless opener known as Initiation. Starts off with nice bass lines, with high-string guitar playing appearing and then it gets as speedy as hell. The next song following this one is another epic song from The Art of Drowning known as Days of the Phoenix. Though it’s not as fast-paced as the last song, it is still one of the best songs off of that album, even though it has some weird lyrics.
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Originally Posted by Days of the Phoenix
The figure on the bed, all dressed up in roses, calling… beckoning to sleep… offering a dream. Those words were mystical as purring animals…
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Hmmm… so far, so good. The third song, A Winter’s Tale, is off of an EP that was released after The Art of Drowning, which was The Days of the Phoenix EP. At first, this song didn’t thrill me a whole lot, but then I decided to keep on listening to see the significance of this song. There is excellent backing vocals in the chorus as always. I don’t know why, but I admire the chorus.
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Originally Posted by A Winter’s Tale
Forever walking through December. Forever longing for a sign of life, a bringer of light. Forever wandering together through a world of violets.
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And the song after that, which is not only an essential AFI song, but is also one of my all time favorite AFI songs, Totalimmortal. This song and Fall Children were from All Hallow’s EP. Fall Children starts off with a haunting guitar intro, but then becomes as fast as the first song.
One of the weakest songs off this album easily was The Prayer Position. No matter how catchy it may be, it is still one of the weaker ones off of this collection. This song could easily be replaced with Malleus Maleficarum. The place for weakest song hands down is tied between Lower It, A Single Second and Perfect Fit. I Want a Mohawk (But Mom Won’t Let Me Get One) is also one of the worst ones. It’s not lethal, but it’s really pushing it.
The funniest song would have to be Rolling Balls. As the title suggests, it is about, a guy who wants to bowl. He tries to join the men’s team, but he isn’t very good, so he tries to join the women’s team, but he has to… well, I guess that one shouldn’t be hard to figure out. This song is also one of the first ones they’ve ever written.
Overall
What’s appealing?
- Features classic AFI songs from the “Nitro” days.
- Great songwriting and musicianship (in several songs)
- A couple of songs are sort of comical (primarily rolling balls)
What’s appalling?
-Also features rather boring AFI songs that should’ve been replaced to represent old AFI better
-Could’ve been a better representation of old AFI
