I love a good epic album opener and holy hot damn does Sing The Sorrow ever have a massive album opener. “Miseria Cantare: The Beginning” gets the ol’ heart rate going immediately with those big kick drums, gang vocal chants, and epic operatic synths.
The first AFI album I fell in love with was The Art of Drowning, a more traditional Goth punk album that first put them on the map with their single “The Days of The Phoenix”. Sing The Sorrow took all the elements which made AFI’s brand of punk great and ramped them up a few notches in their follow up album. The DIY aesthetic of their earlier work was replaced with sleeker production (“Miseria Cantare”), basement club gang vocals evolved into much more complex call and response vocals that at times sound like a Goth version of The Beach Boys (“Bleed Black”), their previous frenetic pace evolved and gave space for the arrangements to breathe (“Silver and Cold”), and straightforward punk songwriting turned the corner and began to incorporate some industrial and experimental elements (“Death of Seasons”). Add in a legit mainstream crossover singalong anthem with “Girl’s Not Grey” and you had the recipe for an album that takes a band to the next level.
Standout Songs: “Miseria Contare”, “Dancing Through Sunday”, “Bleed Black”, “The Great Disappointment”
