AFI - December Underground

AFI - December Underground

 

AFI's last album Sing The Sorrow had managed to take the dark, Gothic (in the classical sense), aggressive, fusion of hardcore punk and horror rock, the band had perfected with The Art Of Drowning and polish it enough to make it market and radio friendly without losing any of the edge and bite. It truly broke the barriers and brought melodic hardcore into the mainstream. Not to say it's without it's flaws, some songs are really just singles, and at times it feels like they are simply trying to reach a larger audience. Overall however it features slick production values, amazing song writing, brilliant lyrics and vocals, and manages to enter new territory without compromising on style or substance.

December Underground takes the production to the next level adding an even further layer of polish and accessibility. Unfortunately this time around the sound suffers for it. The album is heavy on the electronics, chants, breakdowns, and light on substance. There's very few interesting moments on this album. It's mostly charmless and predictable, featuring easily some of the weakest lyrics on any AFI album. Some songs were clearly written to appease and attract the Hot Topic mall punk youth that Sing The Sorrow had managed to reach out to. Songs like Miss Murder are pure fluff, they may look deep from a certain perspective but on further inspection are shallower than a kiddie pool. Although to it's credit, it's an extremely awesome song to hear live. Kiss And Control is another weak song, it starts off interestingly enough but devolves into just screaming.

That's this albums biggest flaw really. So many of the songs start of interesting, they grab a hold of you and draw you in only to disappoint. Still that said there are some standouts on this album. Killing Lights feels like a song straight out of the 80's in a good way. The ending song Endlessly She Said is haunting and melodic but the screams feel unnecessary. Affliction is a hard hitting pulsing rock song which melts into a dramatic, epic, melodic mid section only to speed back to finish off, but it could really do without the screaming. 

That's the thing Davey Havok has always growled but he never really got into pure screaming territory. Sing The Sorrow had a little bit but it never felt forced or out of place. Here it just feels the screams are actually forced into the songs. As if while writing they sat down and said "Yeah this is good but it could be better if you screamed these lines" it just doesn't feel natural. It just feels like they looked a lot not only what other bands were doing but also at what the new fans were latching onto.

To compound that issue there's an over use of electronics and sampling on this album. AFI had experimented with the use of electronic synths and sounds in the previous two album, but it never over powered the songs. Here the use of electronics often feels out of place. Especially in songs like 37mm which sounds like it should have really been a Blaqk Audio song rather than on an AFI album. It's really not a terrible song it just feels so out of place. 

So is December Underground really a bad album? No, especially not when compared to what the rest of the mainstream 'punk' scene was shoveling out. While some of the lyrics were over the top, melodramatic, and just plain cheesy, some of it was extremely deep and poetic. Most of the songs featured great beginnings or captivating style, but failed to capitalize on it. It still ends up being a entertaining album that comes off weak by the high standards set by AFI's previous work. It's worth a listen being a fan of AFI or not, but I wouldn't recommend starting with it.