AFI
Silver Bleeds The Black Sun
Via Run For Cover Records
Ten bottom lip-biting tracks which hit the G-spot. As in Goth Spot. GOTH SPOT you filthy lot. Goth. Spot. Consistent shape shifters over the last three decades, AFI have taken our breath away with album number 12. We’re powerless to do anything but dial ‘C’ for corset over here as AFI serve the coldest and darkest of cuts. Tight as you like acoustic guitars and eighties synths. Davey Havok’s haunting vocals echoing from within gorgeous, layered soundscapes. He rasps, he whispers, he roars. At times the frontman sounds panicked and urgent, at others he’s cool, calm and just toying with us, as those at the helm of this type of haunting dark wave heartstoppers tend to do. From DIY basement thrashers to stadium rockers, former gobby upstarts AFI have given us grunge, nu metal, pop, punk, melodies for miles and more rattling bass than we probably deserve. And while it’s fair to say the band have made it perfectly clear what they’re capable of over their many and distinguished years of musical dominance, the direction of ‘Silver Bleeds the Black Sun’ is unprecedented. Even the band themselves were surprised apparently. You could say that ‘Silver Bleeds the Black Sun’ is brave and bold and a million miles away from ‘Miss Murder’, but really it’s a band embracing what they’ve always done – evolving. And we bloody love it.
Review by Jo Wright