AFI - Silver Bleeds the Black Sun… (October 3, 2025) • Page 18

After several listens, some of these songs just kind of exist but the overall mood and the songs that do hit makes this work for me. Cool stuff.

 

AFI was my first punk band, Answer That and Stay Fashionable, I was new in town and got a copy of it from the kids at school, I loved it immediately. That was 2000 so the first drop off was happening as AFI turned into a more goth centric band. Those albums in turn shaped me, I remember being told how ‘gay’ Davey was and as a person still living in the closet (where I would stay until my thirties before I transitioned) it was also my first feeling of rejection. I made friends with the metalheads and got more into goth rock, when I was in high school. Fell in love with the band HIM, which was not shared by my friends “Ville is gay, HIM? More like HER” but it continued to shape who I was as emo emerged.

I remember everything post-Sing The Sorrow, I enjoyed, but struggled with that it didn’t “hit me” like that period of Black Sails - DecemberUnderground did. I just wanted ”an AFI album” I was chasing for something to shape me and took me a long time to realize that I needed to shape me, and the music would follow.

I say this too as a person approaching 40, who’s gone through a long five years of transition, a life becoming tangled, a divorce, a starting over, finding love again, and my relationship with music continuing to grow, my appreciation for a band trying something bold and new has expanded.

If this album came out in 2005 I would have hated it, in 2025. I love it. I love that AFI has become this place where Davey and company innovate, try new things, continue to redefine themselves and that’s something I really admire. I don’t find this album massive or epic, but I do really enjoy it. I love that it feels like an album that Davey has wanted to make for a long time but felt trapped into making “AFI albums” and this is the first time they seem to have really shed that skin of who they used to be into what they can be and I really admire that and appreciate that in them now more than ever in life.

 

The vibe of this whole album is so good. And extremely smart to release it in October. Gonna be listening to a looooot of AFI this month.

 

i thought the same thing about the october release i was like well now i wanna watch the lost boys

 

I’m gonna have to come back and try this again. Maybe at night and not on a sunny Friday morning while working because 4 songs in and this isn’t working at all.

 

As someone who hasn't followed AFI since Crash Love, I am quite shocked at what I'm hearing. Not in a bad way, just totally different from what I was expecting. Looking forward to digging into this some more this weekend.

 

About halfway through and the acoustic guitar on this album is nutty (complementary)

 

I ADORE this. I liked Bodies, but this is something else. I love how it's apparent what influenced them, but it still manages to sound distinctly AFI.

 

Just finished (after being interrupted by a meeting), I love it. I think the only thing I felt was missing was maybe a little bit of dirt on the bass in certain spots, but the tone matches the vibe so I can't complain.

 

Good album. Can’t wait to listen at night in the car with the windows down. Nooneunderground absolutely rips, was not expecting that.

 

New quintessential October album right here.

 

I wish this were longer, but also I love all 10 tracks. The liberal use of Davey's baritone is really wonderful. He’s been incorporating it more in older songs in the live setting, so it was only a matter of time before it hit an album.

 

This album is so good. Blasphemy and Marguerite are so good

 

The last full AFI album I listened to was Art of Drowning and other than the radio singles I hadn’t heard any of their music since. But I listened to the four hour interview Davey did And it got me interested in catching up with the rest of their albums so I’ve been scanning the other albums, the last few weeks.

I didn’t realize how brief the sound of their popular era was and how varied their albums have been since. I was also surprised by how normal a lot of their music is, because of the perception I had of their more radio goth aesthetic and because Davey sounds so self-important and artsy at times. As an outsider, my takeaway was that they are a much more practical, straightforward band playing rock music and trying on different hats under that umbrella than I thought they were during my 25 years of miscategorizing them as the Totalimmortal/Days of the Phoenix band.

 

Echoing the acoustic guitar on the record. Love the reverby effect it has on the Bird of Prey and Blasphemy & Excess. It's mixed so punchy and I love it.

 

The acoustic parts have a tribal quality that really works. I can confirm they're really cool live, too.

 

Went into this blind, not sure where their sound was. The bass is awesome.

 

This is really fucking good, now I need the weather in Chicago to stop being summer

 

Just hit play and The Bird of Prey is soooo The Cure, love it

The tribal quality also made me recall this

 

Yo I fell off with this band in like 2016 but I'm listening to Bodies right now and this is fucking incredible??? Gotta check out the new one next.

 

Currently doing a whole discog run, to cover everything I have missed leading up to this, after watching the Hardlore podcast. Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes seems pretty underrated. Some interesting guitar writing on that one. I remember being super into Crash Love and Burials when they came out but I haven't listened probably since the year they were released. I know I haven't listened to anything after that.

If I wasn't already excited, a Thursday No Dev comparison will do it.

 

this is my favorite AFI album since Burials

 

Samsies.

 

I'll third that sentiment. Though, I also think they needed to make Blood and Bodies to get to this point. Those two aren't bad in my opinion, they just have an incredible discography.