DECEMBERUNDERGROUND

DECEMBERUNDERGROUND was released in 2006

Track Listing:

1. Prelude 12/21
2. Kill Caustic
3. Miss Murder
4. Summer Shudder
5. The Interview
6. Love Like Winter
7. Affliction
8. The Missing Frame
9. Kiss and Control
10. The Killing Lights
11. 37mm
12. Endlessly, She Said

Genre: Alternative Rock

AFI sets out here to capitalize on Sing the Sorrow's success and make an even more radio friendly album.  Unfortunately, I think they leaned all the wrong lessons from Sing the Sorrow.  I bought this album in high-school because of how much I liked Sing the Sorrow, but that was a mistake.  This album swaps between filler songs and bad choices.  They try to get more commercial, which kinda works in some places but I think the got rid of what made them unique.

Prelude 12/21 - Definitely telling everyone right off the bat this isn't Sing The Sorrow.  Effective intro song, but not my favorite style.  Feels a little too Fall Out Boy-esque 

Kill Caustic - Oh this starts off way heavier than I remembered, but drops pretty quickly into a radio friendly chorus.  But I'm glad they're continuing the mid song tempo changes trend from StS (I'm not actually glad)

Miss Murder - The song every knows from DECEMBERUNDERGROUND.  Memorable, but super bland.  Feels like a discount Green Day song.  And of course, gotta drop the speed and give us a surprising mid song tempo change.  I do appreciate the screams here.  My biggest complaint about AFI is their softening over time so any time they throw in some screams is always appreciated.

Summer Shudder - Not a great song.  The verses are boring, the electronic elements are necessary to make the song not sound hollow, but I think they sound dated.  The chorus is good and I like that they still manage to sound like AFI despite slowing down substantially compared to most of StS

The Interview - Feels like this is supposed to be a downtempo emotional song, but for the life of me I have no idea what he's singing about.  Nothing happens in the song, just super mediocre.  Name drops the album at the end, that's always fun

Love Like Winter - Actually my favorite off the album (once you get past the intro).  One of the few times the electronic elements actually works on the album.  Definitely a hard turn from anything they've done prior.

Affliction - Yeah, scream it Davey.  I wish the guitar was doing more here, once the pre-chorus drops its excellent, chorus is good but man the verses just suck instrumentally.  The 2 minute interlude tacked on at the end is dumb, and since its part of the same song I'm counting it as Affliction.

The Missing Frame - I hate this.  The drums start off like this is going to be Cum on Feel the Noize (Im not kidding, I went back and checked out the Quiet Riot song because I thought I was getting confused, more going on here but still the same feel), then it gets all upbeat and just sounds like ass.  The mid song tempo change has some cool guitar work, but not enough to save this shitty song.

Kiss and Control - This one has potential.  The chorus is good, but just the whole style of this album is grating and the verses again just miss the mark.  And then the spoken word part hits and just ruins any good will this song had build up.

The Killing Lights - Not good, not bad. The chorus is good, seems like they figured out the formula for that here.  Verses are passable.  The breakdown is dumb but not bad and the solo is okay.

37mm - Getting more electronic here and its... okay.  More just mediocrity for this album.

Endlessly, She Said - The final song on the album and its pretty bloated.  Could trim the fat and end up with a good song.  As it is this just kinda plods along, endlessly.

So, 4 red songs and 1 green (and that's generous honestly), not a very good album.  I guess I forgot how much of this album just sucks, I'm going to have to update the band overview so it doesn't include this as part of their peak.  Fortunately I never bought Crash Love or anything later so I dont have to slog through any more shitty AFI albums

2.5/5