Retrospective [PA] - AFI

...decided to release an AFI retrospective I got excited, "finally" I thought, "now when people ask which CD of thiers to buy I won't have to ask a million questions to see which album would suit them best!"

This retrospecitve covers the years 1995 to 2000 when the band were signed to Nitro Records, they have taken 1 to 3 tracks from each CD and put it on this "Greatest Hits" CD.

The Album ...
...courtesy of Hunter Burgan, then joined by tribal like druming from Adam Carson, followed by the heavily distored yet beautiful guitar riff that only Jade Puget could come up with. It then breaks into a frenzy of chanting and aggresive singing instantly recognizable as Davey Havok. It's the perfect track to open up an album showcasing what AFI does best, and that is writing songs that make you want to lose all self control and go mental.

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So... when I heard Nitro had decided to release an AFI retrospective I got excited, "finally" I thought, "now when people ask which CD of thiers to buy I won't have to ask a million questions to see which album would suit them best!"

This retrospecitve covers the years 1995 to 2000 when the band were signed to Nitro Records, they have taken 1 to 3 tracks from each CD and put it on this "Greatest Hits" CD.

The Album opens up with the thumping bass of "The Lost Souls" courtesy of Hunter Burgan, then joined by tribal like druming from Adam Carson, followed by the heavily distored yet beautiful guitar riff that only Jade Puget could come up with. It then breaks into a frenzy of chanting and aggresive singing instantly recognizable as Davey Havok. It's the perfect track to open up an album showcasing what AFI does best, and that is writing songs that make you want to lose all self control and go mental.

This song is then followed by "(The) Days of The Phoenix" Probably AFI's most loved and recognised song, you would be supprised how many people hear this song and say "oh! I've heard this before, I didn't know it was AFI"...

I could go on like this forever, describing the songs and telling you how much I love them, but, unfortunatley this is a review about the CD as a whole, So let me tell you, when I popped this gem into my CD player and pressed the play button and heard that first bass riff I was taken back to the time I first heard AFI.
I was sitting in the back of my friends car with the stereo turned up as far as our ears could possibly stand and I was instantly in love with the way they played thier instruments and Daveys distinctive voice.

This best describes why I ,and many other people who have been fans of AFI for a few years, will love this CD. It reminds you why you started listening to this band, with songs like "Fall Children", "God Called in Sick Today" and "Totalimmortal" taking you back to the "Black Sails in the Sunset" and "The Art of Drowning" era, or taking you even further back with "I Wanna get a Mohawk" and "Rolling Balls" for the 'Hardcore Punk' days.

As stated in my opening paragraph, this would suit newer fans wanting to get into AFI's older material without having to waste money buying multiple CD's.

I was dissapointed at the length of this CD, at just under 40 minutes it's not enough AFI for my liking, and, they have plenty of material to fill the extra 20 minutes they had. Also there was no intro track that AFI have become known for.

As for the album artwork, I have to say, I was impressed. It's pretty dark but very good. They have updated some of the Alan Forbes work seen on alot of the bands CD's and included images of the previous album covers so you will have no trouble finding the CD you want when you go to buy it.

All in all I was happy with my purchase and would recommend this to everyone.

Thank you for reading my first review, I hope I didn't go on too much, I wanted to cover everything I could.
If you have any tips on my review writing skills please contact me.

Dill150uk 

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