Album Review

AFI – Crash Love

• 14th Oct 2009

In a long career AFI have made an unlikely journey from cult hardcore outfit to bankable rock stars. Their rise to prominence started when 2001’s The Art of Drowning first piqued mainstream interest, an interest that would go on to yield a worldwide fanbase and platinum-selling albums. This, their eighth LP to date, looks to extend this success story.

It’s unfortunate to report then that Crash Love shows a dearth of ideas from the Californian quartet. Lacking the poppy ambitions of 2006’s Decemberunderground, it’s a fairly generic affair, each track relying on arbitrary riffage and choruses often lacking the anthemic properties of previous hits.

Not that this an album without the odd high point, though, provided by moments like ‘Too Shy To Scream’, a bouncy, ballsy foray that would have sounded at home on a much earlier album, and ‘Darling, I Want To Destroy You’ is about as close as the usually-reliable chorus makers come to goosebump territory, but these are slight gems amidst borderline mediocrities.

Because mediocrity is what it boils down to with this album: after a trio of records that consistently impressed and brought something fresh to their attack, AFI are sounding a little spent. Perhaps they spoiled us in the past, but I’m afraid there’s little to recommend Crash Love.