Of the 12 songs on Crash Love, AFI's latest record of ultra-serious rock, four include the words "I" or "mine" in the titles. After eight albums, Davey Havok still has nothing to sing about except himself and the hurt feelings he drags around like a martyr.
Despite this and a long bout of being rock's most flamboyantly glamorous goth band, the band has revitalized itself into a more restrained and more mature unit.
AFI has always been a band that flourished on evolution, its last albums sounding nothing like the brute force of their hardcore punk beginnings. Until now, the East Bay hardcore element had always shown up on its records, even after they clearly ditched the genre for greater things.
On Crash Love, these old tendencies for shrill screaming are completely absent, which is a good thing. Songs like Decemberunderground's "Kill Caustic" always seemed like they attempted to appease old fans while simultaneously not putting in new listeners who weren't into hardcore.
Here, the band ditches half-measures and simply makes the best music it can. After a 30-second intro of ambiance and a gothic pummel, Havok interjects with one of his trademark girly yelps, and "Torch Song" starts off the album with one of Jade Puget's best riffs to date.
Puget's guitar work is the standout aspect of the album from front to back. It is heavily layered, sometimes multi-tracking up to four guitars at once.
For the most part, Puget also shows a gift for developing one riff into another, letting the music take space and grow and evolve into the next part.
The chorus to "Beautiful Thieves," however, falls short. Its loud, triumphant blast comes out of nowhere and is certainly not the victorious crescendo the band tries to force it to be.
There are other shortcomings, too. While Puget does his part as a pop punk Johnny Marr, Havok comes across as "Weird Al" imitating Morrissey -- as in his voice actually sometimes sounds like "Weird Al" Yankovic doing his best Morrissey.
Havok's lyrical abilities also bog down the band from time to time. He's not one to shy away from the trite or cliché -- "Oh my dear, please dry your eyes," "I feel nothing at all." He also has a tendency to write lyrics that are altogether meaningless -- "The broken radio was playing suicide," "I'd tear out my eyes for you, my dear/ to see everything you do."
Another detracting point with this album is how nearly every song, after developing pretty interesting music during the verses, always pops into a power chord-backed chorus.
There's no surprise at all in that area.
The band's rhythm section sticks too much to the same pop-punk rulebook throughout the album, creating another source of stagnation in the under-stirred pot.
When Jade Puget joined AFI after the release of Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes, the band wasn't much more than a pretty decent hardcore band of the '90s.
His arrival sparked the band's first experiments, adding darker, almost gothic touches to its heavy punk sound.
Puget's influence as a silent leader still shows through today, in spite of how drastically different the band has become. If his ability to focus and his eclecticism were shared by each member, AFI would be a band to reckon with.
Grade: C
Download: "Medicate," "Torch Song," "Okay, I Feel Better Now"
