New AFI album is upon us! This band started long time ago as melodic hardcore punk skate punk band, but evolved with time into something else, combining Misfits influenced punk rock, dark rock and darkened pop topped with superb voice of Davey Havok. New album contains eleven songs and it is punk rock in a very stretched term. New songs rely more on darkened rock and pop than punk rock although there are couple of excursions into harsher punk waters like Escape from Los Angeles being one of my favorites on this record. But, although punk rock is no more with new songs, atmosphere that is unique for this band is still here. Mixture of melancholy, sadness, darkness and hope with death and life is still here. Also, good melodies and vocal lines, harmonies and songs that will make you hum long after the album finished are here. Besides mentioned, other personal favorites are Back From The Flesh and No Eyes. This is logical continuation of last full length.
The beauty and variety made Finnish underground scene one of the best European scenes. Ode in Black are part of that scene. After releasing their first ep in 2014.they toured a lot before they embarked upon a mission to release their debut album
2018.saw the coming of “Seeds of Chaos” and it consists of eleven tracks of melodic gothic metal/dark rock not unlike the early releases of their countrymen To/Die/For. The guitar structures and riffs are sharp enough to be metal, but all is packed in very dancable gothic rythms, and I can imagine their songs being played in some dark, smokey gothic club and bunch of goths dancing to these tunes. I loved the interaction between male and female vocals in “The sea in which we drown”. The album as a whole is very upbeat and melodic, but what I love about all Finnish bands, whether black metal, gothic, metal or death metal is a sense of quiet despair and melancholy that revolves as silent mist through the songs on their albums. Ode in Black is no exception to that rule. They just took the dark humour and metal of Sentenced and gothic sensibility of To/Die/For and 69 Eyes and packed it in one excellent package! Top songs: “The lone wolf”, “Burn the candle from both ends”.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 