AFI: Silver Bleeds The Black Sun…
AFI has always thrived in transformation, and with ‘Silver Bleeds The Black Sun…’, they’ve once again shed their skin to reveal something darker, colder and unmistakably them. It’s not a return to form — it’s a bold step into new territory that feels like the culmination of everything they’ve been building toward.
I feel the need to make a disclaimer prior to beginning this review: ‘Decemberunderground’ is my favorite AFI album. Now, I realise that I’ve probably lost some of you with that admission, but I encourage you to stick with me.
Imagine, if you will, a coin. One side heads, one side tails; two seeming opposites joined by a thin connecting edge. We can think of emo and goth – both the genres and the subcultures – as the two sides of that coin, and the edge that unites them is good old-fashioned punk rock. Throughout the three-plus decades of their career, AFI (A Fire Inside, if you’re fancy) has inhabited every aspect of that coin, more often than not blending each facet together into a sound that is uniquely their own.
From their early, more hardcore-focused records to their breakthrough album ‘Sing The Sorrow’, they were known mostly as a punk band who occasionally veered outside that territory. On 2006’s ‘Decemberunderground’, the band incorporated electronics and theatrical elements that were characteristic of the emo music of the era (see: the spoken word bridge in ‘Kiss And Control’), which divided their fanbase between those who wanted them to stay true to their hardcore roots and those who enjoyed the expansion upon the band’s sound. I think it’s pretty clear which camp I’m in, but this isn’t the place for me to start a diatribe on the ethos of hardcore.
AFI has now returned with their latest effort, ‘Silver Bleeds The Black Sun’... In pre-release interviews, vocalist Davey Havok has talked about how this album is a reinvention, a new direction, a maturation, and, most importantly, an expression of who AFI is at its core. He also mentions that he’s singing in a more comfortable and natural vocal range for him, and that the East Bay punk influences they’re known for are still present on the album (which he says with a knowing smile). These, to me, were all hints as to what the album would sound like.
Some interviewers have expressed shock and surprise at the sound of ‘Silver Bleeds The Black Sun…’ — I, on the other hand, was only shocked by Davey’s new haircut and moustache (but I digress). I have a personal policy of never listening to pre-release singles and prefer to go into albums with as little knowledge as possible, but as soon as the opening acoustic guitar of ‘The Bird Of Prey’ began, my suspicions were confirmed: they’ve gone full goth — and they’ve pulled it off beautifully. From front to (almost) back, ‘Silver Bleeds The Black Sun...’ presents a more stripped-back, slowed-down — yet still dark and intense — version of AFI. One which, I suspect, will again be divisive.
AFI takes a lot of cues from bands like Bauhaus, The Damned, Wire, and Fields Of The Nephilim here, to the point that if I didn’t know otherwise, I might have assumed they were British themselves. The tribal, pulsating drums; the angular and reverbed-out guitars; the chorus-effected bass; and, of course, the throaty, vibrato, haunting vocals all point to the late-’70s and early-’80s British goth & post-punk scene.
Lyrically, Havok is as poetic as ever here, and the tone of the music even further accentuates the underlying angst and darkness. This is evident in lines like “I’m a dying gasp in angel sighs / like an autumn sky, a heart attack / over beauty I will scream and scream / and it has not the grace to even smile back” from ‘Ash Speck In A Green Eye’, and the entirety of ‘Spear Of Truth’.
And that brings me to the final track on ‘SBTBS…’, ‘Nooneunderground’. What an absolute monster of a closing track this is. Did you spend most of the album looking for the East Bay influence? Look no more, AFI is gonna slap you in the face with it. As ‘A World Unmade’, arguably one of the most glacial songs in AFI’s discography, ends, it leads into a 50-second ambient intro before exploding into a ferocious bassline that kicks off the next two minutes of blistering punk rock that could feel right at home on ‘The Art Of Drowning’.
The common thread here is that AFI are at their best when they are exploring new frontiers. Be it hardcore punk, 5th-wave emo, or goth rock, they are always themselves, and they are always the sum of their influences – however eclectic those might be. ‘Silver Bleeds The Black Sun…’ finds AFI returning to their original influences – the music the members grew up listening to – and writing a love letter to their childhoods while simultaneously embracing their maturity as a band and as individuals. ‘Decemberunderground’ was a formative album for me when I was 12, and will remain my personal favourite for that reason, but ‘Silver Bleeds The Black Sun…’ may just be AFI’s best album to date. At the very least, it is their most intrinsically AFI album. If it didn’t gel with you on first listen, give it some time and another chance.
(As a bonus easter egg for my fellow music nerds, listen to the ascending tom fill towards the end of ‘Ash Speck In A Green Eye’ then listen to “strawberry moon” by IU. Hear that?!)