‘Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep’

As you know, AFI’s new album “DECEMBERUNDERGROUND” comes out this upcoming Tuesday, 6/6/06 :: insert spooky Armageddon is neigh music :: If you head on over to MTV’s The Leak, you can listen to the entire album online, for free, for the next (according to the countdown) 3 days, 22 hours. Heads up, though: Doesn’t work in FireFox so use Internet Exploiter, I mean Internet Explorer. And you have to enable pop-ups. The actual imbedded Windows Media Player comes up in a new window - no pop-up ads that I saw.

Here’s my review and summary of “DECEMBERUNDERGROUND”. As with most of AFI’s albums, there are little unexpected twists and turns. If you want to discover these little treats for yourself then you may not want to read further.

1. “Prelude 12/21″ - Most of AFI’s albums have an intro that does a good job of getting you pumped and ready to rock out. This one did not disappoint and actually gave me the feeling that something epic was about to come at me from my speakers.
2. “Kill Caustic” - I’ve heard this song several times from various places online. This is a good song, reminiscent of their “Black Sails in the Sunset” and “Art of Drowning” days. Hard, fast guitar work and vocals. Davey’s back with what he does best, gong from normal singing, right into good punk rock screeching at just the right times.
3. “Miss Murder” - I believe this was the first single released off this album. The video is just plain crazy and makes me wonder what’s up with all of Davey’s makeup? The song, while still contains elements of rock, seems far too poppy for my liking. It’s catchy, but that’s why pop music is so dangerous to one’s health.
4. “Summer Shudder” - Pretty good song. Most of the background vocals reminded me of 80’s hair-metal anthems.
5. “The Interview” - I don’t really have an opinion about this song. Nothing about it struck me as obnoxious or spectacular.
6. “Love Like Winter” - This is a nice melodic song that is similar to several songs off of AFI’s last album, “Sing the Sorrow”
7. “Affliction” - The album returns to what I feel AFI does best: assault your hearing by laying down a good, hard, fast instrumental backup to Davey’s intense screeching. The guitar work is awesome. The end portion of this track takes an unexpected twist and is totally different than the beginning. It’s mostly instrumental with a few spoken words mixed in.
8. “The Missing Frame” - Mason liked this song a lot, head banging for most of it. The drums and guitar lay down a nice, solid beat.
9. “Kiss and Control” - Great song all around I thought. Mason gave the “head bang of approval”
10. “The Killing Lights” - Mason liked this song as well. It was a bit on the poppy side but the guitar work saved it from that fate and made it a good song to listen to. Vocally, it was pretty good with lyrics like “Am i beautiful? / Am I usable? / It’s killing time again / Put on your face and let’s pretend”
11. “37mm” - This song surprised me with it’s quasi-techno/synth/electronic sound. It’s a nice track but I felt it was a bit too heavy on the echo-y vocals.
12. “Endlessly, She Said” - This song was an excellent choice to end the album. To the ears, it came through hard and melodic at the same time. Sounded much like longs from “Sing the Sorrow” which was a good thing I think.

Summary
Would I buy this album? Definitely. For a few reasons. Primarily, I’m a huge AFI fan. I have been for some time now, much to Keli’s dismay. The band has been a staple in my life for various reasons. Their music is great, instrumentally, and lyrically, their last few albums have been really interesting. “Sing the Sorrow” brought along a song with one line in particular that always seems to pop into my head when I’m having a crappy day - or any hardship: “It’s hard to notice gleaming from the sky when you’re staring at the cracks”

Aside from being a huge fan of the band, the tracks were nicely arranged, with harder songs following the more mellow ones. The overall sound was good, even though there were a few aspects I didn’t care for. AFI is a band that changes their sound, on average, every two albums. This one seemed to pick up where “Sing the Sorrow” left off. For more rabid AFI fans, they claim that the presence of rabbits in this album (on the cover), in the single “Rabits are roadkill on Rt. 37″ and in the artwork for “Sing the Sorrow” indicates something along the lines of lead singer Davey Havok’s assumed belief in reincarnation - considering the fact that in those circles, the Rabbit symbolizes one’s last reincarnated life. Others, I’ve heard, view the symbology of rabbits as an indication, to those who are really listening, that the band will soon call it quits. AFI is a band that I would much rather see hang up their mics and instruments, walk away at a peak in their career as a band, than have them progressively start to suck.

In any case, I highly recommend this album. Mason rocked out to about half of the songs - which is pretty good for a one year old to get excited about this music. This one strikes me as a good “listen while at work with headphones on” type of release.