AFI - The Missing Man EP

AFI
The Missing Man EP
2018
Spotify

Few things troubled my young emo soul more than when AFI went from hardcore punk legends to eyeliner wearing emo sad bois. Sing the Sorrow felt like a betrayal of the highest degree, a play for the middle and a shot at a sound that was never theirs in the first place. You likely could have taken a poll and every band playing "emo" would consider AFI some kind of influence, but they never would expect them to be competitors. That is why this album is so refreshing. Gone are the sad forlorn love songs, and gone are the MTV ready music videos, what remains is some good old school AFI music. The sing-a-longs are back and so is the stripped down production that focuses on the instruments. The drums on this album are so expressive which begins with the first moments of "Trash Bat". "Back Into The Sun" is a haunting anthemic track where Havok allows his voice to spill over the song like water. "Get Dark" feels a bit on the nose, but the driving bassline keeps you totally locked in. AFI have found their sneer again, something that has been missing from their records for awhile. At some point their edges got rounded out, the music got more pedestrian, but here they seem to be taking a small portion of that back and reclaiming their sound. Now, don't get your hopes up and think this will be another Black Sails in the Sunset, it is not but it is far more related to that style of music than their more recent outings.

This EP has that raw emotion that AFI were so damn good at in their early career, but they are no where near the unfiltered power they used to get. They are still stuck in some kind of alt loop that forbids them from going full punk rock again, but god imagine how awesome that would be. It's not that I want them to look back and try to recreate what they did previously, you just wished that version of AFI informed this new one more than their emo days. It's hard to breakdown what that means though, because the reality is AFI are not in the same place, in any capacity, that they were for previous records. They are older, potentially wiser and not the same old punks anymore. That means the music has to change, or they start to look silly. The real question is whether fans will still find them endearing all these years later. I think they will, but I have a long history with this band so I might be a little bit biased. It's just nice to hear some of that raw energy returning to their sound, it's been missing for far too long.

6.0 out of 10