Album Review

AFS – The Prince

• 10th May 2011

The Prince was apparently released on the 25th of April in order to bask in a little light that may have been reflected from the nuptials a couple of weeks back that gave Britain their newest princess.

Yet, it is readily admitted that The Prince was written by Leicester musician and experimentalist, AFS,  in 2010, and is completely unrelated to anything to do with the recent Royal Wedding that captivated a global audience.

Looking past the cheekily coincidental motivations for this release and what do we have?

A deceptively poppy drum loop opens the track, soon led astray by an ice cold synth line reminiscent of Visage’s 80’s hit Fade To Grey and shudders up the spine are induced through a low sitting whisper that is less like a vocal and more of an additional instrumentation as the track creeps along with an awkwardly restrained upbeatness that is weighted heavily by the moody atmospherics on display.

With a closing gambit of spoken word regarding King George II and the Prince of Wales, AFS has given the world a perfect piece of snobbish mixtape fodder, a mixtape likely delivered to you by someone whose musical tastes are far cooler and eclectic than yours and wants to show off their knowledge of disparate musical acts that you would never have discovered without their guidance.

Friends of mine should expect this on mixtapes very soon.