Review Summary: Anguish gives way to glamour
Two sources of darkness have warred within AFI. The first, which crept in with
Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes and reached full expression with
Sing the Sorrow, is inner anguish: frontman Davey Havok’s self-loathing, pity and hatred. The second came later with
Decemberunderground: a taste for the pure
aesthetics of darkness – the theatrics, glamour, flamboyancy and stylistic sheen of “goth pop”.
The inner integrity of
Decemberunderground collapsed through its trying to introduce the new animating force while respecting the old. Anguish is credible so long its expression is authentic and self-serious. Glamour is credible so long as its expression is part-
performance and carries an awareness of its dramatic excesses. Unable to negotiate the two, the album’s attempt at macabre introspection was undone by the frivolity of its hooks and bouncy, radio-appeal. Further sinking any pretentions of emotive depth to its darkness was the “slit-your-wrist” lyrics that shamelessly aimed at teens caught in the mid-noughties “emo” fad.
Burials took another unconvincing stab at conjoining the two sides of the band’s soul. But between those two failed attempts, 2009’s
Crash Love eased the burden on AFI by largely ditching the element of anguish altogether. A more light-hearted record, it directed its gaze outward, offering social commentary on the destructive attachments of modern living. Now
The Blood Album follows in the same spirit, whole-heartedly embracing its identity as a pop album that keeps its darkness from going too deep. While its lyrics tease themes of death and hopeless love, it’s all
show. It’s an attraction to the
fashion and
romance of the night.
It’s an aesthetic propped up by the light electronic touches and drawling vocals that are staples of late AFI but the hooks are less crass and the instrumentation more subtle than anything they've released in a decade. Hunter once again gives us memorable bass lines on “Hidden Knives” and “Pink Eyes” and, throughout, Adam’s drumming diverges from the perfunctory role it often took in recent records. While over-produced at times, Davey’s vocals co-operate with the music, no longer throwing the listener off with awkward or overly whiney inflections.
Casting off morbid self-exploration, AFI have even achieved enough distance from themselves to have a little humour. Hence
The Blood Album is comfortable in drawing inspiration from the band’s first two albums. Songs from those youthful hardcore outings didn’t even make set-lists as AFI toured in the mid 2000s. When you have an album as portentous as
Sing the Sorrow to support, the fact that you once wrote songs about Key Lime Pie can only be an embarrassment to hide from newly acquired fans. Yet
The Blood Album summons riffs that echo this early-career period, and plays with lyrical phrases like “dumb kids” that would be out of place nearly anywhere else in their discography.
No doubt, this transition to outer-aesthetic can come with a loss of intimacy. AFI can’t be your means of inner catharsis here. But speaking personally, the period of my life where I could relate to the intense depression of older AFI is gone. And even then it took the drama of a teenage perspective to really think that what I experienced was a fitting match for the desolation expressed in the music. Frankly, I don’t want to be taken to those places any more. I can enjoy older AFI but only with some intentional effort to resist the gravity of gloom it exerts. Like adults dressing up for Halloween, there is a license with
The Blood Album to enjoy darkness in a more frivolous way. I’m glad that anguish has given way to glamour.
