Crash Love - AFI "review"

I'll pull no punches here. This album is a pretty big disappointment. I've broken it down song by song. But before that, I'd like to talk about a few things first. Oh and please remember, this just one fan's opinion that I am more than entitled to it.

I in no way want to shout "AFI has changed" and cry. Yes, AFI has changed and I completely expected so. They changed when they went to Sing the Sorrow and they changed when they went to Decemberunderground. I welcome change that I like. I don't welcome change I don't like.

Many people love this album. Many hate it as well. Of course, once the dust settles, and the fanboys and fangirls have their multiple eargasms, they will likely change their opinion of the album. Too many are jumping to "this is waaaaay better than Sing the Sorrow." I'm sure the fans will still love this CD after they get used to it but I doubt they will hold it up so high. Sing the Sorrow will always be AFI's best in my opinion.

One of the smaller problems with this album is it's length. Only 43 minutes long. This is their shortest, not by much, DU was only 44 minutes long, but it seems like very little for such a long wait. The best song on the album in my opinion is 2 minutes 39 seconds long!

One of the more annoying things about this album is it's name and cover art. I won't harp on this but I absolutely hate both. They feel like a pop album; like Miley Cyrus or the Jonas Brothers. When I expected AFI to grow as an artist I didn't expect them to grow into love, hearts, and gold.

It might just be me, but overall, this CD is just too pop. I'm not against anything being mainstream. And even though the lyrics are dark... ish, I really wasn't expecting or wanting such an upbeat and happy album. I don't know why... I should have expected such from the gay ass title and cover.

So here's the track by track review:

1) Torch Song 4 1/2
This CD starts out pretty good. This song really sounds like a mix of all the good from STS and DU. This is definitely a great opener. I love the lyrics, "I'd tear out my eyes for you my dear, oh my dear."

2) Beautiful Thieves 4
This track is not bad. It sounds very DU-ish (which is fine with me). I enjoy this song enough to keep it on my iPod but I certainly wouldn't call it 'single' material. To me the best CDs are ones where each and every track could be a single.

3) End Transmission 4
Now the album starts getting weird. In a good way though. This song sounds very 80s and very Black Audio-ish. I like it. Not quite sure why this girl is grabbing her bag and he's grabbing the gun, but it's pretty cool. By this track I am happy with the album... so far that is...

4) Too Shy To Scream 1/2
Oh how quickly the mighty fall. I absolutely hate this song. I have to work hard just to finish the not even 3 minute track. It sounds like they went to some 1950's soda stand and started dancing to the jukebox. This is NOT rock. This is where AFI turns to gay ass pop. I have finished the song once... which just sorta ends outta no where. Oh, and I gotta make fun of the first line, "I come quietly." Yeah right, when you should "Oh!" at the beginning of every track.

5) Veronica Sawyer Smokes 1
Suddenly we've slipped and fallen . I have trouble finishing this track as well. Too pop. Too boring. Just... dare I say, un-AFI.

6) OK, I Feel Better Now 1
Well, I don't. By this point in the CD I am being quite let down. A few really good beginning songs that just slip into total shit. The problem with this song (which is starting to leave the the pop world, but not entirely) is that it just sounds like total filler. Nothing stands out and I just don't care.

7) Medicate 3 1/2
I like this song to start but it got old really quick. I can remember how much Miss Murder and Girls Not Grey just made me so excited for the full album. Medicate is good, not great. It had two problems. The first is that it seems to stick out like a sore thumb among the other tracks. The second is that it sounds as if their label said to them, "make a song specifically tailored to Guitar Hero and we'll call that the first single."

8) I Am Trying Very Hard To Be Here 4 1/2
This is the best track on the CD in my opinion. It sounds more like Miss Murder than anything else, I think (other probably don't). I think this should have been the first single. Maybe it'll be the second. There are two problems with it I see. The first is that the winners who sing the whole "flash flash car crash" part don't seem nearly as enthusiastic as they could. The second is that this song is only 2 minutes and 39 seconds long. If it were longer, I'd have given it five stars. This song is exactly where I was hoping for AFI to go with the whole album... but they didn't.

9) Sacrilege 2 1/2
This is the only song that actually does sound like their old stuff. Unfortunately it sounds like a scrapped b-side on Sing the Sorrow. The chorus is kinda boring and the song as a whole sounds like filler. This is one of the tracks that could totally use some angry Davey shouting or screaming but the entire CD lacks that.

10) Darling, I Want To Destroy You 4
With this song we are back into a pop sound. This is the most DU-ish sounding song on the CD in my opinion. I like it... I can't say why, but I do. It sounds very very much like a song that would be heard on the CW as well.

11) Cold Hands 1/2
Eh. Boring. Filler. Terrible chorus. I just don't care.

12) It Was Mine 1
This was rumored and expected to be their powerful and epic end track ballad like Endlessly, She Said and This Time Imperfect. Those songs have stood the test of time as truly amazing emotion filled tracks of epicness that It Was Mine fails to deliver. This too feels like filler

Overall Score: 2 1/2

The songs just don't hold together well. I miss lengthy tracks. I miss hidden tracks. I miss shouting and feeling. I miss rock. I know, I know, they change and evolve and that's exactly what they have done. But they didn't evolve in the direction I expected men in their mid-thirties to go.

It seems very clear that they and/or their label is pushing them in the direction of teenagers. That disappoints because I don't feel like they were pointing in that direction in the past.

I have given this my open-est mind. I love a few tracks but nothings seems to have the massive power all of their previous works had. Each CD had on it an epic song (think Kiss and Control, ...But Home Is Nowhere) and an epic ballad (think This Time Imperfect, Endlessly She Said, God Called In Sick Today). This CD has neither.

Some people (mainly young AFI fans who weren't even in high school when Sing the Sorrow was released) will absolutely love this CD and give it a perfect score. I'm willing to bet that Davey and Jade love this CD too and good for them.

Me, personally, just feel so meh about this CD. The powerful response I got from Sing the Sorrow, Decemberunderground, and even Black Audio's CexCells does not happen with Crash Love.

All I can do now is enjoy the few gems that this CD brings and patiently wait for the new Black Audio CD. Davey says that it's already done... but in the last few years I've learned I can only trust less than half of what he says in interviews.

Sigh. Not all is lost . I have really enjoyed the new Three Days Grace, the new Breaking Benjamin, Atreyu, and A Day To Remember which all show far more potential.

Top Ten Albums/Songs

1) Relationship of Command- At The Drive In
2) Showbiz- Muse
3) Superunknown- Soundgarden
4) Silent Alarm- Bloc Party
5) Origins of Symmetry- Muse
6) Songs for the Deaf- Queens of the Stone Age
7) Is This It?- The Strokes
8) Absolution- Muse
9) Up the Bracket- The Libertines
10) OK Computer- Radiohead

Songs

1) Pattern Against User- At the Drive In
2) Killing in the Name- Rage Against the Machine
3) She likes Surprises- Soundgarden
4) Escape- Muse
5) King of the Rodeo- Kings of Leon
6) Boys Don't Cry- The Cure
7) Transmission- Joy Division
8) Let Down- Radiohead
9) Citizen Erased- Muse

Muse

Well I will be one of the first to admit that I hyped up Muse like they were God's gift to music. And at one stage i guess they were heading in that direction. This will probably end up being one of those "their old stuff was better" blogs.
As far as their CDs are concerned I'm not too disappointed with the music. Admittedly their recent effort "The Resistance" is decent and at times well composed. Matt Bellamy's genius does sometimes filter through on a few songs. However overall it's all over the place, the order of the songs is all weird and Muse may as well name themselves, "Matt Bellamy and Muse" or "Matt Bellamy and the Two Stooges".
Self-production didn't really work that well for them.

I guess I am more pissed off with their live shows of late. They started really going down hill after their epic two nights at Wembley Stadium. I have been lucky enough to have seen them in all of their differenct periods and fazes. I first saw them at Livid in 2000 and then managed to catch them on their Origins Tour, Absolution Tour, and The Black Holes Tour. It's easy enough to say that "their new stuff will never compare to their old stuff" or "they were the days". But in this case it really is fucking easy.

I miss the days when Matt had blue or red hair, or when they used to get drunk and take mushrooms before taking the stage at a major festival. Or when they would totally destroy the set and Chris would slam his bass guitar into the bass drum or Dome would get a guitar thrown at his face during a gig.
Obviously bands mature and grow up a bit. But to totally change your sound and the way you go about your live shows to suit certain demographics and hence changing your style of music to please radio listeners (aka selling out) pissed me off.

The lack of enthusiasm at the Gold Coast Big DAy Out was on par with the Kings of Leon. And from reports from the USA, their live shows have been just as short as a Kings of Leon gig. 50mins-1 hr is fucking lame.
Thankfully the GC Big Day Out they payed over an hour. I felt sad watching them at Big Day Out this year because I had a feeling it would be the last time I would see them. They played a decent set, a mix of the old and new (mostly new). But one thing they did was they covered the set time frame with fillers, nothing songs, and they over-played riffs from old songs to fill in time. That to me was poor form.

I love Muse and thankfullly I have some pretty damn fine memories over the years. I have seen them 10 times now but I feel that's where it will end. I cannot justify seeing a band, any band, that plays for a short time for $130. To me the SHowbiz, Origins of Symmetry, and Absolution eras will live on. Black Holes and Revelations had it's moments but that's when things started to change. Prog-rock is progressive sure, but i think they've slipped into a comfort zone where they don't feel the need to totally go out in their live shows and challenge themselves.

At the end of the day, me bitching will not change anything, they will always make more money than me and will always have those crazy diehard fans that I love.
I feel let down but at the same time truly happy to have seen them at their best.
/bitchathon

Courture to Die For

These days it seems to me and probably the average person on the street, that high-end fashion and the stuff you see at fashion shows is grossly expensive and unwearable. Who the hell wants to wear an entire family of minks? Or a large possum on their head?
Another item that some people find hard to obtain is general accessories. Things like bangles, bracelets, necklaces, buckles, corsets, hair pieces etc. All of a sudden however, there has been some kind of accessorising boom in Australia. I live in Brisbane and everywhere I look whether it be on the street or on the interwebz, small accessory businesses are springing up everywhere.

The main problem I have with it is that alot of them tend to copy each other or their products are just simply badly made and modeled on what American scene kids are wearing from Hot Topic. However one such young designer caught my eye and indeed everyone's here at Mannequin Republic. And I couldn't have thought of a better name and motto. Dropdead Gorgeous- Courture to die for.

How good is that!?!?! Well it's good and it works because it's original. Everyone wants to have exlcusive bits and pieces that they can show their friends and that's exactly what DDG caters for. Miss Tiffany Barlow (Fanny) is the brains behind it and I must say that she amazes me everytime she designs. Her desgins have alot of thought put into them and that is evident with the finished product.

Things you wouldn't think of wearing have suddenly become wearable and quite affordable.
And because alot of Fanny's designs are limited, you will look way cooler than your friends on a regular basis.

All I can say is well done Fanny and I hope she keeps at it because in my opinion, she is leading the way for young designers.
Courture to die for? I'm in heaven.

For more info visit DDG's facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dropdead-gorgeouscouture-to-die-for/221754254551?ref=ts