AFI - Decemberunderground

Decemberunderground proves that AFI is a mediocre pop rock band and a fabulous punk/hardcore band

Decemberunderground is the polarizing album AFI fans will either love or love to hate. It is the album where the band will find out it’s impossible to keep fans old and new satisfied. It is also the record that will make AFI huge (for a primetime-shy mascara wearing goth-punk quartet anyway). Whether they’re aware of it or not is debatable, but this is the sound of a band entering the next level. And for listeners of discerning tastes, that sound is like when your cat is coughing up a whopper of a hairball, or when the local high school band played Europe’s “Final Countdown” at your brother’s graduation. But for young teenagers in bondage pants and devastatingly un-funny Happy Bunny t-shirts, that sound is irresistible. This might as well be Jesus covering God’s greatest hits, because to misunderstood high school freshmen, this is divine. It is a phenomenon that I will never understand, for I am a mere mortal. Besides, at 20, I am much too old.

The album starts off the way any Sisters of Mercy worshipping band would want it to: with a creepy prelude. In “Prelude 12/21,” singer Davey Havok (if that even is his real name…) half sings, half speaks about being “laid to sleep” to over a stumbling industrial beat and choral “whoa-ohs.” Spine-chilling. But then the haunted house theme music unexpectedly gives way to one of the year’s most gripping, badass, heavy songs. Second track “Kill Caustic” is classic AFI- Havok’s manic screams mingle with an excellent metal guitar riff, calling to mind a more sophisticated and pissed-off “Total Immortal.” Radio hit “Miss Murder” shifts the focus to the band’s pop sensibilities, and it’s sing-songy good. Three tracks in, AFI has you firmly gripped by the throat.

Then they slowly relinquish control and lose the listener’s attention with four whimpering minutes of organ-laced boring. The offending pop ballad, “The Interview,” probably made the label very happy, but where are the cojones? This is a question that follows AFI throughout the rest of the disc, from one dark pop anthem to the next. “Love Like Winter” then sets a precedent for most of the tracks that follow by relying too heavily on Havok’s reedy singing voice and not enough on the band’s assets: powerful, inventive guitar riffs, well-constructed choruses, aggressive drumming and loud, screaming vocals. “Affliction” and “Endlessly, She Said” are more centered on these strengths, but AFI too often forget what they do best.

Simply, Decemberunderground proves that AFI is a mediocre pop rock band and a fabulous punk/hardcore band. With the band in the middle of a troubling existential crisis, they have simultaneously accomplished a career highlight and established a new genre: medio-core.

(Interscope Records)