One of the most eagerly-anticipated albums of my life, I spent about 6 months in 2013 tracking this release from the first teaser trailed to the day the postman brought my CD. It's one of my favourite AFI albums and the darkest one in their discography. The print of the cover that I got with the album is still framed and on display in my bedroom. I will never forgive AFI for not touring the UK in support of Burials.
1. The Sinking Night 💙
A short introductory piece which sets the bleak tone for what's to come. It's dark and heavy and has a classic 80s goth feel which continues throughout the album. The lyric 'the gold in my palm was mistaken for sand' feels like a link back to their previous release, Crash Love, which had a gold cover and wasn't received as well as their previous two hit albums; specifically, it reminds me of this Kerrang! photoshoot where their hands are painted gold.
2. I Hope You Suffer 💙
The first song that was released from this album. It contrasts soft-spoken verses backed up with piano and synthesised beats, with a harsh guitar-led shouted chorus. The chorus, which repeats 'I hope you suffer' is a very direct statement from AFI, compared to the more veiled and hard-to-decipher lyrics of their past work. It's clear from this song that the album is going to be devoid of light.
3. A Deep Slow Panic 💙
Something about this song feels 80s-influenced but I can't put my finger on what it is. It's another bleak song with no hope allowed but this one has a catchy chorus. I don't know what happened to Davey Havok when he was writing this album but it must have been really bad for him to release 13 songs like this.
4. No Resurrection 💙
There's a great bass part driving this song. I don't have much else to say about it as an individual song; it's one of the less-memorable ones, but I will say that I didn't really get what people mean when they say 'this is an album I can listen to from start to finish' until thinking about Burials - this is one of those albums for me that works best when I sit down and play it all the way through rather than on shuffle.
5. 17 Crimes 🎀
This is the one moment of brightness on the record, and it's one of my favourite AFI songs. It's a perfect dark pop song with a persistent beat that drags you along and a captivating vocal. There's a "better enjoy the moment while it lasts because everything after this will be miserable" feel to 17 Crimes which is appreciated here. At the end everything drops out except the drums and vocals and the song is over all too soon.
6. The Conductor 💜
And the skies cloud back over to leave us in darkness again. I think this is my favourite intro on the album with the programmed drums and industrial sounds. The 'warm receiver' lyric is a nice link to Depeche Mode (see their song Sacred) which kindly guided me to notice the DM influence to this song - it reflects the heavier DM songs like Barrel Of A Gun and A Pain That I'm Used To. Listening now, I've talked myself into seeing this as a highlight of the album even though until now I've thought of it as being on a par with the others.
7. Heart Stops 🎀 This is, I think, the saddest song AFI have ever recorded, even though it has a big catchy chorus. I don't know what effect is used on the vocals but it sounds like nothing they've put out before it; it's stripped back and that makes it stand out on the album. Again it's an 80s pop song but instead of neon brightness it's been soaked in black paint. In the second verse he places a curse on the person who has wronged him: "may your cruelty find you, may the scars you left in me dig in to you twice as deep" which is simple but scathing. The only thing I don't like about the song is the guitar sound just before the end - it's got that bad-80s metal squeal to it, but I can excuse it here because the rest of the song is so good.
8. Rewind 💙 Rewind is another song that I don't have a lot to say about. I can't really make out the lyrics, especially in the chorus, which is a classic AFI thing - there are a lot of misheard AFI lyrics floating about the internet - but it's unusual on Burials as Davey enunciates well elsewhere. In that respect, the vocal part of this song reminds me of his performance on their first mainstream album, Sing The Sorrow.
9. The Embrace 💙 Another song where he is placing a curse. This is my least favourite song on the album. It's not 'worse' than anything else on here, I just don't like the line "walk into traffic" because it reminds me of that horrible Brand New lyric ("have another drink and drive yourself home, I hope there's ice on all the roads") from every girl's MySpace when I was 14. It's the most electronic song on the album up to this point, the closest to crossing over to the Blaqk Audio side of their musical output. For some reason I can never remember the title.
10. Wild 💜 This is the most electronic song on the album, with its dance beat and great electronic sounds (not quite The Disco Sound Effect but not far off) that sound unlike anything they've done before on an AFI album OR a Blaqk Audio one. Yet it's still a break-up song; chorus: "True love won't be remembered, my regret will last forever". It doesn't sound like New Order but it has that same 'sad disco' vibe that I mentioned when writing about them previously. It's a stand-out on the album for me because of the beat and the synth parts.
11. Greater Than 84 💙 The most obvious 80s influence comes in this song when Davey sings the line "the future's here, it's 1985". The vocal delivery has a bit of voice-cracking sadness in the verses and strength in the chorus. It reminds me a bit of the Hollywood drama of earlier AFI songs like Kiss And Control with references to the night sky but even though he's calling to a girl to be his queen tonight, it still carries the 'love is hopeless' theme of the rest of the album. The references to watching meteor showers and the era also feel literary - there's the obvious 1984 allusion but something about it also makes me think of Gen X hero Douglas Coupland and his book Girlfriend In A Coma.
12. Anxious 💜 Following Greater Than 84 this intro sounds slow, like it's trying to catch up to the previous but struggling. However, this is one of those songs that sounds great when you're playing music on shuffle and that striking vocal intro hits you. The chorus is a triumph and the verse vocal reminds me of one of the great 80s goth singers but I can't work out who - it could be Danzig or The Cult. Davey is welcoming death in this song which is uncomfortable but I like the song a lot anyway. The phrase 'this is a joke' creeps in to the final chorus and I wonder whether it's a comment on the situation he's in or the lyric itself.
13. The Face Beneath The Waves 💙 As far as closing songs go, this is a perfect choice for Burials. The choice of chords and sounds make it the darkest on a dark album. The lyrics give us a clearer story about the break-up which led to Davey writing the bleak lyrics which make up the content of the previous 12 songs. The chorus places a final curse on his ex: "I will return again, I am part of you". Is it creepy? Yes, and normally when I hear a lyric like this I wish the man would take the hint and leave the girl alone. However on this album the words and music fit each other so well and create such a great work that I give this a pass. At least he doesn't call her a whore like (insert emo frontman of your choice here). The final doomy industrial notes which sound more like a ship coming in than a musical note takes us back to the intro of The Sinking Night - a full circle just like the eclipse on the cover.
Burials is one of my favourite albums, and as I said earlier, one that I prefer to sit and listen to from beginning to end. It's one of the bleakest albums I've ever heard so I wouldn't suggest it's perfect for all occasions but if you want to sit in the dark and sulk for a bit, this is the one.
This week's mix CD is a bit of a weird one because I'm not sure exactly when I made it. #193 should make it the most recent mix CD I've made but it wasn't on the spindle when I was numbering them and I found it in another disc box recently. The tracklisting suggests late 2013 to me, maybe songs that didn't make it onto the monthly review mix I used to do for a few years when I downloaded a lot. It's heavy on AFI and side-project Blaqk Audio and those were the bands I was listening to the most in the wake of the release of AFI's Burials album at around that time.
1. Blaqk Audio - Bite Your Tongue 🟢
This is the first of a number of Blaqk Audio b-sides on this CD and is as good as anything on the first couple of albums. I'm not sure when this song came out - Google suggests it might have been a b-side on their 2nd album Bright Black Heaven - but it's a decent BA song. I particularly like the pre-chorus: "Oh my paper rose, strike a borrowed pose and they'll never know your frail truth". This is a BA song that sounds like it could have made it onto an AFI album if it had some guitars on it. It's not exceptional but it's a good enough average BA song with a cool abrupt ending. I'm not sure about the pew-pew-laser sounds though.
2. Brigitte Bardot - Moi Je Joue 🔵
How charming! This is total perfume ad music but it's so lovely and bright and evocative. It's a sunny beach on the Riviera with Brigitte and it never fails to make me smile. I don't speak enough French to understand what it's about or sing along but I like it all the same. It's much too short, though.
3. AFI - This Time Imperfect 💜
From the beach to the darkness but just as evocative. We are knee-deep in my 2013 'second honeymoon' AFI phase here but This Time Imperfect is actually one of my favourite songs from my 2006-2007 AFI phase. On this mix it's been torn from the other pieces which make up a full suite at the end of the 2003 album Sing The Sorrow and I'm not sure why it's track 3 on here when it is so clearly a closing number. I love the 2nd chorus where the everything becomes more intense, I love Davey Havok's vocals on this song and especially the classic Davey "oh!" before the final choruses. It's sad and beautiful and I get a big hit of nostalgia from it. However, despite the outro being super atmospheric and nice to bask in at the end of an album, it feels way too long in this context.
4. Falling In Reverse - Caught Like A Fly 🟡
Now to a phase I regret! This song is basically a diss track with Ronnie Radke airing his feelings about his former bandmates in Escape The Fate (particularly bassist Max Green) moving on with their careers while he was in prison. I usually love everything with this cabaret-style rhythm but this song is not good. The Escape The Fate saga was like watching a soap opera and I always felt like these personal grievances should have been dealt with privately rather than by putting lines like "your grandfather would roll in his grave" on your comeback album. From this distance, and probably at the time, I got the feeling that Ronnie and Escape The Fate were using the drama of their story to sell records and keep the publicity machine rolling, and I wonder how genuine it really was. Ronnie Radke, of course, doesn't seem like a very nice person in general, and even if this song was good - and it's not, it's just sad - I wouldn't rate it any higher than this because I would be happy to never hear it again.
5. Blaqk Audio - The Ligature 🔵
This feels more like an intermission piece than a song - I could imagine hearing it while the band nip off stage for a quick break. It might be a Jade Puget experiment with vocal effects but it's still great. A little melancholy but somehow soothing, and one of my favourite Blaqk Audio non-album tracks.
6. Jason Mraz - I'm Yours 🟢
This song was everywhere for a while but it has almost entirely disappeared now. Weirdly the only time I remember hearing it in recent years is when it was played in a nightclub I was in a couple of years ago and it felt like a very odd choice for that atmosphere. It's twee, one hit wonder singer-songwriter pop but that doesn't mean it's not a nice love song. I must have listened to this a lot when it was ubiquitous as I still know all of the words. Unlike a lot of the music on this disc it's positive and laid back and I just 😊😊😊
7. AFI - Totalimmortal 🔵
This song makes me miss live concerts so much even though I wasn't going to shows like the ones I imagine when I hear this song. I feel like I deserve to be thrown around and climbing on people in a sweaty club while AFI play in 2000, but alas. It's a great, dark hardcore punk song and the gang vocal chorus is a delight. I've known this song for over a decade and read the lyrics only yesterday but after the first line I have no idea what they are.
8. Paramore - Native Tongue 🟢
Another b-side but this time by Paramore. This song is kind of like a bridge between their albums Brand New Eyes and the self-titled Paramore. I haven't listened to this as much as the other b-side from this era, Escape Route, but the chorus is catchy. The album it was dropped from ended up being so much better than this though. This might just be an average Paramore song but Hayley Williams is a brilliant singer and lyricist and I adore her.
9. Touché Amoré - DNA 🟢
Touché Amoré is another band that makes me yearn for packed hardcore shows and I wish I'd gone to see them at this time. This is heavy and urgent and I love that they pack as many notes as possible into every bar - guitar, bass and drums are all operating as fast as they can until they drop out, which is thrilling.
10. Blaqk Audio - If Only 🟢
Another Blaqk Audio intermission track. The lyric that repeats in this one: "If only you knew, would you save me?" forms the outro of one of the songs on the first album so I wonder whether this is an alternative outro that they were playing with and chose not to use. It's a nice little piece of music but I don't think I could call it a song.
11. Phoenix - 1901 🟢
This indie tune is instantly recognisable from a million soundtracks but I don't think I can confidently name it - when writing a draft of this blog I put '???' next to the title as I was kind of guessing it was this. 1901 sounds like Vampire Weekend crossed with every landfill indie band the UK produced after Alex Turner made it look easy and it's an average song with a pretty keyboard part. I guess if it was really good I would know for sure what it is, but on this mix it feels like a bit of filler since I genuinely wouldn't have recognised it without that hook.
12. AFI - 337 🟢
I thought this was Blaqk Audio again but it's actually an AFI instrumental that preceded the debut of Blaqk Audio as a side-project. It's all atmosphere and I think it was made to be a bit of background music on their website or something. It's fine but again, not really a song as such.
13. Street Drum Corps ft Bert McCracken - Happy Xmas (War Is Over) 🟢
I love Bert McCracken's cliché emo boy voice and he sings this well. I'm not sure about the "war. is over." robotic intro and outro and I find the acapella middle bit odd - I know it's a cover but it sounds like they sort of ran out of song and needed to fill the space. I don't know anything else about Street Drum Corps but I assume they're a band and not an actual drum corps as I've been imagining for the last 10 years. There are at least some strong drums in it. It's a nice cover if you're an emo but I don't really need this in my life now. I'll eventually get round to talking about the John and Yoko original which I think is an underrated Christmas hit.
14. Blaqk Audio - The Switch 🟢
This has a really good Davey Havok vocal and great Blaqk Audio erotic lyrics - it would fit in well on their first album, Cexcells, in fact I wonder why it didn't make it onto the album. It's got super heavy bass and soaring synth sounds and it really takes me back to 2013-14.
15. Pat Boone - Moody River 🔵
The mp3 I used for this mix has been ripped from vinyl as you can hear the needle drop and the crackle of the record, which I love. This song is so sad and mournful with the back-up singers; I love a 'splatter platter'. The sweet tinkle of the piano is jarring against the rest of the song, just like this song itself sticks out on this mix. I'm sure Pat Boone is really unhip but I can't help but like this song.
16. Panic! At The Disco - Nicotine 🟡
I couldn't identify this song from the intro alone as I'd fallen away from P!ATD by the time this came out. I didn't realise Brendon had gone for EDM beats as early as this but I'm not especially fond of it. I don't like to be one of those people but I don't really get on with modern P!ATD or Fall Out Boy - the old stuff was better. It's catchy but it's not clever, and P!ATD's lyrics used to be full of clever wordplay and references. It's very pop, but not in a good way.
17. Elvis vs JXL - A Little Less Conversation 🟢
This song was everywhere in 2002. It's fun and upbeat and I think this would have been around the time I became aware of Elvis as a cultural phenomenon... well, this and Lilo & Stitch. It's a cool take on the song but Elvis is timeless and doesn't really need this. I don't know how to categorise the song - it's dance music but at the same time it's not? It's kind of like dance music for older people, dance for people who don't like dance music, I guess.
18. Mark Ronson ft Lily Allen - Oh My God 🔵
Lily Allen does a really good job of this Kaiser Chiefs song, giving an attitude-filled, more spoken than sung performance. I can remember the video for this song was really cool with a cartoon Lily performing the song in a club. I also remember that I wasn't allowed to like this album because it was all covers and therefore wasn't a creative work. I think we can all agree now though that Mark Ronson is an impressive producer and the way he took indie songs and made them jazzy and cool is a real talent.
19. Tegan & Sara - Now I'm All Messed Up 🟢
Twins Tegan & Sara really know how to put a song together and harmonise - they sound so good together. It's a sad break up song disguised as a big pop ballad and they deserve all of the acclaim that they get. When they add 'please stay' to the last 'go if you want, I can't stop you' chorus it breaks my heart.
20. Motionless In White - Ghost In The Mirror 🟡
This is a standard metalcore emo song. I don't remember listening to this at all when I was into MIW but it's a very predictable exercise in genre. It's from the EP that preceded their first album Creatures and I was never able to get into any of their pre-Creatures work. It does absolutely nothing for me now. Also it took me three choruses to realise he's saying "tell me dear" and not "tell me dad", which is what happens when you listen to Metal Mickey by Suede a lot.
21. Tonight Alive - Lonely Girl 🟢
I've unfortunately burned a terrible quality (probably YouTube) rip of Lonely Girl to this disc. Jenna MacDougall has a great voice but this is a fairly average pop punk song, not that there's anything wrong with that. The song reminds me of rain so it's possible that the video features them performing in a storm but I can't remember anymore.
22. AFI - Breathing Towers To Heaven 🔵
This song starts with a really cool intro and I didn't recognise it as AFI until Davey started singing. He sounds amazing, as if he's singing in an empty room with sparse drums and bass backing him up. The excellent 'disappear with me here' chorus is familiar to me but I've never spent a lot of time with Breathing Towers To Heaven and I'm not sure why because it's really good! A pleasant discovery from this disc.
23. Vampire Weekend - Hannah Hunt 🟡
A final mystery song. I figured it out as Vampire Weekend upon hearing the distinctive voice of Ezra Koenig but it took him singing the song title to click in my brain. It's indie filler material again - I would download this stuff when I came across it online and then never listen to it. It's okay but I feel like I waited for 2:40 before the song actually started and I'd already made my mind up that I wasn't interested by then. He has a nice voice and Vampire Weekend have a really interesting and pretty sonic palette but this song isn't really anything.
The days are getting shorter and it's suddenly cold and dark outside all the time, which means it's the ideal time of year to listen to one of my all-time favourite bands, AFI. 'Sing The Sorrow', released in 2003, was the band's breakthrough album and is considered by many to be their best. It's actually not my favourite of their releases, although it's hard to say which is because they've put out so many great albums, but it's pretty close to flawless.
To set the scene: AFI began as a band in 1991 as a group of high schoolers playing fast-paced, juvenile hardcore punk, and as the decade went on and the band grew up they put out darker and darker albums. By 2003 they were signed to a major label and ready to put 'Sing The Sorrow' out into the world. The album was a huge success, going platinum in the US and Canada and catapulting the band into the mainstream. Above, you can stream the full UK edition of the album including the bonus tracks not available on the standard CD.
AFI are a band who like to keep an element of mystery to their work and there are a few questions that 'Sing The Sorrow' poses: Why is 'The Leaving Song Pt II' before 'The Leaving Song' on the tracklisting? What does the 'Clandestine' film that accompanied the album on a limited edition DVD mean? And what is going on in the VMA-winning music video for hit single 'Girl's Not Grey'? There are plenty of fan theories, but the likelihood is that we'll never know.
My album highlights:
Miseria Cantare - The Beginning Most of AFI's albums start with a dramatic opening number, and Sing The Sorrow is no different. In this case we begin with a dark, atmospheric piece with a chant proclaiming that 'you are now one of us', setting the tone for the rest of the album.
Silver & Cold One of the three singles to be taken from the album, Silver & Cold has a huge catchy chorus and almost makes you want to cosy up under a blanket to escape from the cold it somehow gives off. The cinematic music video features the band rushing to rescue singer Davey Havok from plummeting off a bridge to an icy grave.
Dancing Through Sunday This song absolutely sounds like something you'd want to dance and have a good time to, and it would be perfect for a night out if the band didn't sing 'we dance in misery' throughout the chorus. There are a lot of beautiful lyrics on this album but this song has some particularly good moments.
Death Of Seasons My favourite from the album, this is one of the first AFI songs to incorporate electronic elements. It sounds great on the album but it has to be seen live to be truly appreciated; the way that Davey gets down on his knees to yell out the final lines is heart wrenching.
This Celluloid Dream
This was one of the first songs from the album that resonated with me, although for years I struggled to make out exactly what Davey was saying. When I finally looked up the lyrics I was pleased by the image that they painted.
The Leaving Song 'The Leaving Song' is an acoustic number with a lovely simple guitar melody accompanying the words. There's not much I can say about it other than that it's beautiful.
...But Home Is Nowhere The final track on the standard version of the album, this song starts very quiet and builds up into a giant widescreen chorus. If this song really was the last one it would make a perfect conclusion, but of course there are still a couple more amazing moments to follow.
Spoken Word (Untitled) A hidden track at the end which forms a bridge between the false ending (...But Home Is Nowhere or Now The World on the UK edition) and the final hidden song, Spoken Word is a poem read in three parts by a child, an old man and Davey Havok himself about a couple on the last night on Earth. I'd recommend listening to get the full experience, but as the voices are almost drowned out by the piano accompaniment the transcript can be read here.
This Time Imperfect The true ending to the album; 'This Time Imperfect' rides in on the wind, slowly breaks your heart, and then fades back into the night. It's a poignant close to a heartbreaking set of dramatic songs to listen to on a dark night.
'Sing The Sorrow' has since been followed by three more stunning albums, 'Decemberunderground' (2006), 'Crash Love' (2009) and 'Burials' (2013). The latter is the one I would recommend to fans of 'Sing The Sorrow', it's similar in its themes of darkness and despair but it has an added element of anger.
'Sing The Sorrow' is a perfect collection of songs and deserves all the critical and fan praise that has been bestowed upon it. If you haven't taken the time to sit down and listen to it yet this is the perfect time of year to turn out the lights, wrap up warm, and dedicate an evening to a great album by one of my favourite bands, AFI.
