Rocker (feedbot)
Gold Member
‘Silver Bleeds the Black Sun…’ is not a record from the AFI that play in the memory of every early noughties alt kid. The masters of subtle reinvention, who slid from hardcore basements to MTV screens, who flew their Black Sails In The Sunset across a Silver and Cold sea, have emerged from hibernation with an astonishing post punk album. Part Siouxsie, part Bowie, and all eighties sparkle, ‘Silver Bleeds the Black’ is a look back from Davey, Hunter and their friends on their career and their inspirations, a record stripped of the bombastic pomp of their mainstream years. It’s also an album made by men older and wiser than the long-haired idols we remember, equally as revealing as it is a gorgeously nostalgic construction.
We didn’t get much warning of AFI’s new direction, but our advance notice was beautiful in its scope. ‘Behind the Clock’ rises like a city of steel and concrete, dominated by echoing guitar that guides us through alleyways of tense drumbeats. Previously, we needed the emo end of Davey Havok’s vocals to drive the drama, but now his theatrical echoes bleed into Jade Puget’s heroic riffs like they’re flying in formation. To skip from this to ‘Holy Visions’, a track that broods and stalks then skips into raindrop guitar and idolatrous rapture in the vocals, is a stunning move. This is the kind of purity in thought and tone that betrays the drive behind AFI all along. How we missed their Bauhaus childhoods under their hardcore screaming for so long is a mystery.
The quiet that fills the spaces between each idea is something we also never knew we needed from AFI’s sound. “Here’s blasphemy, here’s to excess,” spits Havok, the line more bold amid the philosophical ripples of ‘Blasphemy & Excess’, backed by acoustic guitar that wraps itself around this records like thorns. Introduced in silken opener ‘Bird Of Prey’, another track unmuted by it’s subtlety, we’re struck by their ability to conjure their past to shed light on the world unfolding in front of us. Religion and contemplation provide the backdrop for their post-punk maturity: ‘Spear Of Truth’ deserves a video in blurred black and white, with waving sheets across a church to match the lightness of the guitar in comparison to the monumental intonation from Havok. Even the most stereotypically eighties songs like ‘Ash Speck In A Green Eye’ or ‘Voidward, I Bend Back’ burn like altar candles in a blackened night, dealing in the metaphysical with as much delight as they apply gilt to the band’s inspirations.
This might not be the AFI album that we asked for, but it’s the one that we deserve. It’s too cliche for a band pushing fifty to make yet another straight punk album, and it’s not like they kept their love of synth and new-wave a secret over the years. Here, at the end of 2025, AFI have revealed themselves as the goths they were all along, masterfully processing their experiences and loves into mature, honest post-punk. They’ve shed some of their po-faced seriousness which prevailed in their earlier years, and while ‘Silver Bleeds The Black Sun…’ is frequently a playful album, there’s never a loss of their earnest desire to make a statement. They’re wise enough to have created an album reflecting exactly where they are in their lives and careers: smart, bold, nostalgic, dark and a constant surprise.
KATE ALLVEY
We didn’t get much warning of AFI’s new direction, but our advance notice was beautiful in its scope. ‘Behind the Clock’ rises like a city of steel and concrete, dominated by echoing guitar that guides us through alleyways of tense drumbeats. Previously, we needed the emo end of Davey Havok’s vocals to drive the drama, but now his theatrical echoes bleed into Jade Puget’s heroic riffs like they’re flying in formation. To skip from this to ‘Holy Visions’, a track that broods and stalks then skips into raindrop guitar and idolatrous rapture in the vocals, is a stunning move. This is the kind of purity in thought and tone that betrays the drive behind AFI all along. How we missed their Bauhaus childhoods under their hardcore screaming for so long is a mystery.
The quiet that fills the spaces between each idea is something we also never knew we needed from AFI’s sound. “Here’s blasphemy, here’s to excess,” spits Havok, the line more bold amid the philosophical ripples of ‘Blasphemy & Excess’, backed by acoustic guitar that wraps itself around this records like thorns. Introduced in silken opener ‘Bird Of Prey’, another track unmuted by it’s subtlety, we’re struck by their ability to conjure their past to shed light on the world unfolding in front of us. Religion and contemplation provide the backdrop for their post-punk maturity: ‘Spear Of Truth’ deserves a video in blurred black and white, with waving sheets across a church to match the lightness of the guitar in comparison to the monumental intonation from Havok. Even the most stereotypically eighties songs like ‘Ash Speck In A Green Eye’ or ‘Voidward, I Bend Back’ burn like altar candles in a blackened night, dealing in the metaphysical with as much delight as they apply gilt to the band’s inspirations.
This might not be the AFI album that we asked for, but it’s the one that we deserve. It’s too cliche for a band pushing fifty to make yet another straight punk album, and it’s not like they kept their love of synth and new-wave a secret over the years. Here, at the end of 2025, AFI have revealed themselves as the goths they were all along, masterfully processing their experiences and loves into mature, honest post-punk. They’ve shed some of their po-faced seriousness which prevailed in their earlier years, and while ‘Silver Bleeds The Black Sun…’ is frequently a playful album, there’s never a loss of their earnest desire to make a statement. They’re wise enough to have created an album reflecting exactly where they are in their lives and careers: smart, bold, nostalgic, dark and a constant surprise.
KATE ALLVEY