"DECEMBERUNDERGROUND is a time and a place. It is where the cold can huddle together in darkness and isolation. It is a community of those detached and disillusioned who flee to love, like winter, in the recesses below the rest of the world."-Davey Havok

DECEMBERUNDERGROUND is also the title of AFI's seventh album. And like much of the record's lyrical and visual imagery, it seems to stand in stark contrast to the name behind the band's world-renowned moniker: A Fire Inside. Then again, the brightest flames burn white-they just don't burn bright for long•

"There's a lot more attention to detail on this record," Jade recalls. "We spent a long time writing it. We refused to rush ourselves. We took our time not just on every song but on each guitar part, each vocal, each bass line. We definitely didn't rush into the studio."

The fruit of this labor is a record that Davey Havok is confident "should break us out of any preconceived genres." And even on a cursory listen, the wealth and diversity of material backs him up from the first note: "Prelude 12/21" is a rhythm/vocal-oriented curveball that differs radically from the customary calls to arms that have opened all AFI albums since Black Sails. From there, DECEMBERUNDERGROUND veers from AFI's first straight-up vintage glam style shuffle on first single "Miss Murder" (complete with backing chants from The Despair Faction) to the stark and stunning soundscape of "Love Like Winter" and the epic suite "The Interview." The longtime AFI faithful need not worry, as DECEMBERUNDERGROUND features more than a fair share of familiar AFI hallmarks, from the slash and burn of "Kill Caustic" and "Affliction" to the balladic finale' "Endlessly, She Said."

Of AFI fans' reaction to the new record, Davey says, "Our fans always come with us every step of the way. I think they recognize honesty in our music, that this is the only way we can express ourselves, to make music that we love. Nothing else. That's what allowed us to make the jump way back when and what continues to keep us going now."

"Some artists fear change and their fans' reaction to it," Jade says. "A big part of our relationship with our fans is that we do change with every record. It's expected and embraced."

AFI CRASH LOVE

Davey Havok - Vocals Jade Puget - Guitar Hunter Burgan - Bass Adam Carson - Drums

"Crash Love is certainly not a concept album or rock opera by any stretch, but the songs are generally connected by a greater theme... The album title itself can be construed as a command, as a destructive kind of love, or as a desire for a relationship that's heading inevitably toward disaster or flameout. The lyrics of some songs trace an arc from adoration to the desire to tear down the object of affection. These songs are written from perspectives both sympathetic and critical, as well from both the inside the relationship and outside."--Davey Havok

Crash Love, AFI's eighth full length studio album, due out September 29, 2009 on DGC/Interscope, is indeed informed not only by the ever-evolving chemistry between the musicians in the band but also by the members' personal lives and perhaps most of all by the always intense relationship between AFI and its fans. The latter has intensified considerably over the most recent of AFI's 18 years as a band, with 2006's decemberunderground entering the chart at #1 with first week sales of nearly 200,000 and subsequent sold out shows at the Long Beach Arena and Bill Graham Civic as well as appearances on Saturday Night Live and at Live Earth--not to mention 2003's Sing The Sorrow going platinum. These experiences were bound to have an impact on four kids from Ukiah, California who formed a rudimentary punk band in 1991 with aspirations of playing in the SF Bay Area and possibly releasing a few singles and an LP or two.

"The record is really more about how the great attraction to inappropriately shared intimacies, carefully constructed personas, and the loss of a sense of self can affect an entire world," Havok explains. "As well as how this loss of self is sought after rather than resisted... With today's media, we have such quick and pervasive access to the trivia of anyone's lives. Everything is intensified and indulged, this desire and ability to know everything you possibly can about anyone, from what thread-count bedsheets they sleep in to whether or not they believe in ghosts."

While Crash Love is the first AFI record to feature such prevalent sociopolitical and observational perspectives, the darkly personal AFI lyrical strain is distinctly present on standout tracks like "Medicate" and its stark portrait of a user/enabler relationship, as well as throughout the ill fated death ride scenario of "End Transmission." Elsewhere, the newer approach shines on the self-explanatory "Darling I Want To Destroy You," "Veronica Sawyer Smokes" with couples Jade Puget's Smiths-esque guitar signatures with a tale of heartbreak brought on by disappointment with a teen idol, "Beautiful Thieves" with its privileged characters whose actions carry no consequences, and "Too Shy To Scream" which sets yearning, distanced adorations against the backdrop of a drumline-inspired shuffle propelled by Hunter Burgan's bass and Adam Carson's drumming.

Crash Love, it has to be said, features AFI's Puget, Burgan and Carson playing at their most focused and direct. Where Sing The Sorrow and decemberunderground saw the band's compositions increasingly steeped in atmospherics that created a moody-heavy realm that often threatened to engulf the songs, Crash Love is, according to Carson, "the sound of the four of us playing in the same room. It's by no means stripped down but you really hear the band. Sing The Sorrow--and to certain extent decemberunderground--gave us our first experience with big budget recording, which led to some really dense arrangements, electronics, overdubs and so on. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but this time we came in with 14 songs we were playing really well and wanted to capture that energy."

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AFI
CRASH LOVE

Davey Havok - Vocals
Jade Puget - Guitar
Hunter Burgan - Bass
Adam Carson - Drums

"Crash Love is certainly not a concept album or rock opera by any stretch, but the songs are generally connected by a greater theme... The album title itself can be construed as a command, as a destructive kind of love, or as a desire for a relationship that's heading inevitably toward disaster or flameout. The lyrics of some songs trace an arc from adoration to the desire to tear down the object of affection. These songs are written from perspectives both sympathetic and critical, as well from both the inside the relationship and outside."--Davey Havok

Crash Love, AFI's eighth full length studio album, due out September 29, 2009 on DGC/Interscope, is indeed informed not only by the ever-evolving chemistry between the musicians in the band but also by the members' personal lives and perhaps most of all by the always intense relationship between AFI and its fans. The latter has intensified considerably over the most recent of AFI's 18 years as a band, with 2006's decemberunderground entering the chart at #1 with first week sales of nearly 200,000 and subsequent sold out shows at the Long Beach Arena and Bill Graham Civic as well as appearances on Saturday Night Live and at Live Earth--not to mention 2003's Sing The Sorrow going platinum. These experiences were bound to have an impact on four kids from Ukiah, California who formed a rudimentary punk band in 1991 with aspirations of playing in the SF Bay Area and possibly releasing a few singles and an LP or two.

"The record is really more about how the great attraction to inappropriately shared intimacies, carefully constructed personas, and the loss of a sense of self can affect an entire world," Havok explains. "As well as how this loss of self is sought after rather than resisted... With today's media, we have such quick and pervasive access to the trivia of anyone's lives. Everything is intensified and indulged, this desire and ability to know everything you possibly can about anyone, from what thread-count bedsheets they sleep in to whether or not they believe in ghosts."

While Crash Love is the first AFI record to feature such prevalent sociopolitical and observational perspectives, the darkly personal AFI lyrical strain is distinctly present on standout tracks like "Medicate" and its stark portrait of a user/enabler relationship, as well as throughout the ill fated death ride scenario of "End Transmission." Elsewhere, the newer approach shines on the self-explanatory "Darling I Want To Destroy You," "Veronica Sawyer Smokes" with couples Jade Puget's Smiths-esque guitar signatures with a tale of heartbreak brought on by disappointment with a teen idol, "Beautiful Thieves" with its privileged characters whose actions carry no consequences, and "Too Shy To Scream" which sets yearning, distanced adorations against the backdrop of a drumline-inspired shuffle propelled by Hunter Burgan's bass and Adam Carson's drumming.

Crash Love, it has to be said, features AFI's Puget, Burgan and Carson playing at their most focused and direct. Where Sing The Sorrow and decemberunderground saw the band's compositions increasingly steeped in atmospherics that created a moody-heavy realm that often threatened to engulf the songs, Crash Love is, according to Carson, "the sound of the four of us playing in the same room. It's by no means stripped down but you really hear the band. Sing The Sorrow--and to certain extent decemberunderground--gave us our first experience with big budget recording, which led to some really dense arrangements, electronics, overdubs and so on. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but this time we came in with 14 songs we were playing really well and wanted to capture that energy."

Their debut album from Dreamworks includes two bonus tracks: "Now The World" and "Synthesthesia".