For Love of the Crash

I'm going to break with tradition here and give you a very important piece of information right up front. The moral of this post is this: I think I really enjoy AFI's latest album, Crash Love. And while that doesn't seem terribly important--and in fact, in the grand scheme of things, it is probably of very little consequence whatsoever--I feel like there's something to be extrapolated from this experience.

My first AFI album was 2003's Sing the Sorrow. I bought it strictly on the strength of its first single, "Girl's Not Grey," and the fact that it was on sale for $7.99. I figured there had to be more than one good song on there, right? Well, I threw it into the CD player in my car and quickly found it very hard to digest. It was weird and not terribly coherent, and at least half the songs featured animalistic screaming that I just didn't find appealing. The only song I consistently liked was "Girl's Not Grey," and it was hard to justify keeping the CD in my car for one single track when I could just as easily rip the song, put it on a mix CD--yes, ever-nostalgic reader, these were my pre-iPod days--and have one disc that featured songs I knew I liked.

And so I put it aside onto my CD rack, believing it destined to collect dust from here until eternity. But somehow, after a few weeks, I felt called back, like I needed to reexamine the disc, give it another shot. Could one or two quick listens really have been sufficient? Might there actually be a gem on there I'm overlooking because I'm more concerned about dashed expectations than I am with the quality of that with which I've been presented?

I took another listen. Nope, still hated it. Back to collecting dust.

I repeated this process several times over that fateful year, and each time I listened, I felt like I was getting no farther in my quest to appreciate the disc for anything more than a strong single and an incredible purchase value. The tracks were unyielding, unwilling to give me anything that my ears could comfortably grasp onto. The frustration mounted with each new listen.

Then finally, after around ten listens that yielded nothing, I gave it another shot--and it's hard to explain what happened. For some reason, the tracks felt different to me. I was beginning to lose myself in the guitar work and the melodies. Davey Havok's voice began to leap rapturously from the speakers and I found that, despite a year of hating, I was finding the even-numbered tracks (which, interestingly, were the ones that featured the least screaming) to be incredibly satisfying. From there, I began developing an appreciation for several of the odd tracks too, the screaming somehow now fitting the timbre of the song in ways I hadn't realized before.

And then finally, after over a year, the moment came where I realized that I didn't actually hate the disc anymore. In fact, I loved it. And yes, it still remains one of my favorite CDs.

So it was with my first AFI experience: a very gradual, slow development of appreciation. But I felt as if learning to like Sing the Sorrow was a trial that I had passed, that I could now expect to access their other work and be able to appreciate them like I hadn't before. I went out and acquired the preceding album, The Art of Drowning, after hearing that disc's single, "The Days of the Phoenix" (which I will say is arguably the best song the band has ever recorded).

And what happened? You guessed it: I hated that one too!

Now, at the risk of turning this into a novella of music reviews, I'll spare you the experience of what happened with that disc. I'll even admit that, as of right now, I haven't given it the most fair of listens. But when I heard word of a new AFI disc, to be released ominously on 6/6/06, I was thrilled. I had written off The Art of Drowning because I felt like I didn't know where the band had been coming from stylistically prior to that, so I was trying too hard to project Sing the Sorrow on their earlier material, instead of doing it the other way, which would have, you know, made sense.

When the devilish day arrived, I raced to Best Buy to acquire the CD and immediately put it in the car and cranked the volume. And once more, I was shocked and dismayed. It opened with an intro track followed by "Kill Caustic," a vicious, aggressive number in the old screaming style, and then the single, "Miss Murder." A pretty strong start, I'd say. But then the album slipped into electronic tones, techno-style ambient sounds that seemed like the second verse of "Death of Seasons" had been dragged out to album length. I couldn't wrap my head around it at all, and decided that I was, for the most part, disappointed.

But then, after a few more listens, it started growing on me and I became enraptured with that disc too--a disc that even many fans, as well as critics, had written off as not being their best work.

Later on down the line, when I went even farther back into their catalog, to Black Sails in the Sunset, I barely listened to any of it because I couldn't enjoy it. Then I recently burned it for a friend of mine and, lo and behold, I found myself attracted to many of the tracks as I relistened. Once again, it took time.

Which brings us to the present, and Crash Love. This was an exercise in self-awareness: I had figured on hating it from the get-go, so I didn't feel like I entered the first listen with any kind of expectations at all. And sure enough, as soon as I put it in, I was rather surprised. After listening to the whole thing straight through, and being relatively underwhelmed, I could point to two things missing from the disc, two things that had peppered all of AFI's work before that moment: 1) Davey's screaming (yes, dear reader, I had come to actually miss it!), and 2) the call-and-response choruses provided by their fan club, The Despair Faction. Sure, the music sounded like AFI, but it was missing some things that were quintessentially AFI, and I couldn't get behind it in the end.

It had been languishing on my CD rack for the past two months. Occasionally, I would listen to the bonus tracks (which I initially felt were far stronger than the album tracks), but I couldn't even get behind the single, "Medicate." Even my adventure to DC for the job interview, where I was hosted by a good friend who is an even bigger AFI fan than I am (the same good friend of two paragraphs previous), couldn't sway me, despite listening to Crash Love a few times in her car. The familiar story was repeating itself again.

Then yesterday, I found myself drawn to the CD again, for reasons I can't explain. I had been substitute teaching on Monday and Tuesday, and had heard no music over those two days, but I somehow found a chorus from Crash Love in my head. It prompted me to grab the CD and put it in my car, where I started from track one, "Torch Song." And a remarkable thing happened.

As I drove, the chorus came up: (Anything!) I'd tear out my eyes for you, my dear / (Anything!) To see everything that you do, I'd do. And, son of a bitch, I was singing along. Like I knew the words instinctively, like I had all along. On the next track, "Beautiful Thieves," the same thing happened. By the time the fourth track, "Too Shy to Scream," came on, I was full-on rollicking. It was, I realized, the song I'd had in my head that day, and I was finally satisfied to have heard it at last.

Just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, I listened to those tracks again last night. And sure enough, they were stuck in my head and resonating strongly, just like they had been earlier that day. It was no fluke. And even though I've only been really obsessed with the first half of the album recently, I think it's safe to say the rest of it isn't too far from coming around.

Which brings us to the aforementioned moral of this post: I think I really do enjoy Crash Love.

I know what you're thinking. That can't be it, can it? I read all of this just to find out that it's nothing more than a music retrospective? What's the point!

I can't promise I can assuage those concerns in a few short paragraphs. The truth is, when I first conceived this post, I thought it might be funny to look back in time and see how, despite different perspectives and lessons learned over time, the same exact thing happened. Silly Dave, not learning from his mistakes--that doesn't sound familiar at all, does it! I really thought it wouldn't go much farther than that.

But as I've been writing, I've also been reflecting. And after much reflection, I've decided that maybe the real moral of the story is patience above all else. It doesn't matter how much I knew, what I was expecting, or what I had planned. I needed to be patient and let the albums take their course over me before I could really come to appreciate them. In a way, that's not too dissimilar from my own present situation. I'm in the midst of great transition, with some prospects ahead that are making me equal parts thrilled and apprehensive. I've never been one to particularly like the idea that I don't know what's going to happen, particularly when that outcome isn't guaranteed to be a good one. That does not, however, make those moments any less worth experiencing. It's worth it to see those things through and to appreciate the adventure they provide, without so obsessively looking towards the outcome. It's been said before, but it bears repeating: if you look only for the destination, you'll miss the whole journey.

And so I preach patience, a commodity I'd like to think I have but could always do better at exercising. The way things are going now feels good and right, and that's enough. If I can focus on truly savoring the experience, on living in the moment as opposed to for the moment, the juice will be that much sweeter. And all those great things that I've been dreaming of and wishing for--all those things that drive my fears, when I feel like I'll never realize them--well, they could be right around the corner. Like AFI, and like those beautiful thieves, when they happen they'll be the things no one suspects at all.