Eighteen years into their career, AFI have made their first rock album. No fancy genre terms, no elctronics or maudlin' 'emo' lyricism, just hard-hitting, blood-rushing, guitar heavy rock. Frontman, the Morrisey-aping Dave Havok, is a vocal force with less screaming and greater alto depthh. The instrumentation has mutated since 2006's Decemberunderground; compressed drums squeeze out of End Transmission, matched with guitarist Jade Puget's complex yet irresistible riffs. Unimpressive lyrics of "the broken radio was playing suicide" aside, it's near pop perfection, only exceeded by Too Shy To Scream, which has an intro frighteningly similar to Adam & The Ants' Goody Two Shoes, being a clapalong rhythmfest with chugging guitars. Veronica Sawyer is a 90s inspired love letter paired to music made for driving around town with a broken heart.
Lyrically Havok has embraced a greater outward outlook as there's less introspection and louder speak of the world at large. Medicate is slick, catchy and polished for a shiny pop rock gleam, skimming the surface of finding solace in numbness, whether it is literal substance abuse or otherwise. I Am Trying Very Hard To Be Here is a comtemptuous dig at celebrity with "So lose your past/ I'm sure you'll find it's in the way all the time". Sacrilege touches on the death of religion in a dogmatic age, only to have its raging flow stiffed by the perfunctory balladeering of Darling, I Want To Destroy You.
Crash Love will surely cause a ruckus among the dedicated with cries of "SELL-OUT" or "Punk is Dead", but AFI have transitioned from punk to goth and now to rock seamlessly with appealing results.
8/10
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