I went back to relisten to "Sing the Sorrow" a few weeks ago. It had not held up as wel as I had hoped, mainly because Danny's high shouting vocal did not have the power I remembered. Over time AFI evolved into something that makes them more similar to his side project than not. Fairly up beat synth wave. This feels like old Depeche Mode. Havok's vocals are a little more resonate here than his younger days in AFI that I revisted. The song writing is even more polished than the ast time I heard him. I feels like he is more into this genre than AFI's last attempts at punk. He uses more vocal coors on this album which I appreciate and keeps a dynamic flow to the album where other bands are not as gifted in this area.
His voice drops down to the more typical dark wave baritone on "A Distant Light" . They go in an even bigger VNV Nation direction musically on "Hiss" . This album touches on all the brands of synth pop that came out in the 80s with new wave on "Burnt Babies Fear the Fire". There is a Gary Numan touch to this song. They stay in the same zip code of upbeat 80s pop on "Fish Bite" . His vocals are perhaps marginaly more melancholy. The hook in the chorus is pretty strong. The reverse is true to " Bird Sister" where it feels stronger going to the verses and the chorus is more dialed in. Not a bad song though, just not as good as the previous one. The same can almost be said of " I'm Coming Over" .
The "People are People" bounce to "Tired Eyes" doesn't grab me as much either. The vocals are not the most inspired of the album. They back off a little on the last song. Over al it's an enjoyable listen even though I am well versed in the influences I am still able to listen to this for what it is. I will give it a 9 and see if it grows on me.
No comments:
Post a Comment