AFI – Decemberunderground

A bunch of my friends hate change. They hate evolution in a band’s music. They want to hear the band come out with the same album they released in their “glory years” – and yet, they get tired of listening to the same album over and over again and complain when a band releases a new CD with songs that sound exactly the same as their old stuff. It really makes no sense. So of course, they bitch, moan and complain about Decemberunderground – and yet they’ll still listen to it constantly, wear the band’s shirts and call them the greatest band of all time. But until the day they die, they’ll always say this CD sucks and will never understand why a band needs to change and evolve between albums. Not only to keep themselves happy, but to be true to the fans who would easily hear it if the band was cheating them and just spitting out the same songs that they did on the last album. The fact is, AFI have evolved, and once you accept that, you will hear a great album.

Now, I’ve never been a huge fan of AFI – I like their stuff when I hear it, I’m excited to see them live in a month, and I like quite a few of their songs, but to say I know every song in their back catalog would be a complete and total lie. But still, I know the general theme behind the band, and somehow, Decemberunderground is exactly what I thought it would be. And oddly enough, the one song that would probably fit into the band’s back catalogue easiest, and the only track my friends claim to like, is probably the one track that is most misplaced on the entire album. The harder Kill Caustic shows that Havoc can still belt out some screams in the vein of Atreyu, but it just doesn’t fit in the album spectrum. In fact, the Green Day-esque single seems more appropriate here.

The songs are more technical then before, songs like Love Like Winter are covered in a heavily affected guitars, and while it seems like it could be horrible, it works so well you can’t get it out of your head.37mm sounds almost electronic at one point while the five minute long Affliction ends with a girl talking over a repeated melody, and even though people complain about the length and calling it “boring” – it fits the album perfectly and is far from boring. It is more epic and in touch with the more technical and experimental side that the band has shown on Decemberunderground. That’s not saying they’re stuck to super long epics either as they spit out the two and a half minute Love Like Winter and the phenomenal minute thirty opener, Prelude 12/21 – who’s drumming/clapping pattern leads the listener into the album in the best way possible.

It’s evident that the songs aren’t nearly as rough as the band’s older material. It’s not as quick, nor as choppy, and raw. Instead, it’s more produced, slicker and smoother – very different from the times of Shut Your Mouth & Open Your Eyes. It suits the band now and when it all comes down to it, half of AFI‘s old fans will bitch and complain about this album – I know a handful of my friends do. But the fact of the matter is this, in one month AFI are coming to town and each and everyone one of those complainers are already lining up to buy tickets. They will go to the show and sing along to every lyric – new and old. They will dance and have the best night of the summer and talk about the show for months afterwards. They will still complain about Decemberunderground but somewhere deep inside them they will understand that it was the natural progression the band needed to take – to spit out the same album would just be cheating everyone. They will wait for the band’s next album, to then complain and say how much better Decemberunderground was. Because after all, in the punk scene, it’s a circle of hate with a inner layer of love for everything you claim to hate. I mean, if you claim to like everything, where’s your scene cred?