Review Summary: AFI best effort showcases the band's knack for originality, talent and cleverness, track after track, you will lose yourself to A Fire Inside
There have been many things that have lead me into great music: my brother giving a mixed tape filled with bands such as Rage Against the Machine, Incubus, Foo Fighters, Jane's Addciton and of course, AFI.
I am a complete AFI fan boy, so keep that in mind, I'll try hard not to make this a fan boy review though. I first heard AFI in my brother's mixed tape, and the songs on the album were Totalimmortal, Morning Star, Girl's Not Gray and Silver and Cold. I liked Silver and Cold the most and decided to find what album they were off of, which led me to one of my first purchased albums, Sing the Sorrow. I was 9 at the time, and i still thought Sum 41 and Greenday had musical talent, so when I first picked up something that was actually good and very weird, I actually hated it, just because I was afraid of liking something that was different from my usual music. It was only after a few more years of my music taste improving that I realized what a work of art this album really was.
I also have Decemberunderground, which came out three years later, and I found it to be similar to this album but not quite as good. Then I went back and bought Art of Drowning, which is amazing but still not good as this. I just loved this album because it had the perfect amount of credibility, catchiness and originality to it to make it a classic. It takes you to another world, Miseria Cantare is such a strange and amazing intro (AFI always has great intro songs) that by the time The Leaving Song Pt.2 came on, I was already amazed at what I was hearing.
I saw on the back of the cover and saw the song title "Bleed Black." And thought, "What the ***, what a death song that's gonna be." I was pleasantly surprised though. The song is incredible, with a great chorus and the creepy breathing at the beginning. The rest of the album was just as amazing as the beginning. Silver and Cold is possibly my favorite song of all time, Dancing Through Sunday is Screamo at its finest. The Great Disappointment has a very beautiful chorus and saddening feel to it. The Leaving Song is a major highlight, with its simplicity, but great lyrics. This Celluloid Dream has a wonderful opening guitar riff and everything else in the song is solid. A few songs that arn't completely amazing are The Leaving Song Pt.II and Paper Airplanes just don't excite me as much as every other song on the album. Of course Girl's Not Gray is truly great, and But Home in Nowhere is haunting and is truly the example closing song. The poem in the middle is quite creepy and it feels like im on a different planet when listening to it.
The lyrics of AFI are quite intriguing, I don't think anyone is quite sure of all of what AFI completely is. After dozens upon dozens of listens, little parts of the lyrics are given away to you, I have different theories on what the lyrics truly are, but I will never really know. It's just another reason why they are so great, because they have really ***ed up lyrics. The album art is interesting in here, it really sets a mood for what the music is.
Buying Sing the Sorrow will definitely expand your music taste, but it will also give you an opportunity to think like you never have before. Song after song, the greatness just continues and when its over and done, you will feel like you never have before.
then again, your music tastes probably differ from mine a lot.
