25 Years Later And AFI's "ALL HALLOW'S E.P." and "BLACK SAILS IN THE SUNSET" Are Still Must Have Albums For Your Halloween (REVIEW)

AFI

25 years after their break-out album “Black Sails In The Sunset” and the “All Hallow’s E.P.” were released, AFI has stood the test of time as one of the best punk/hardcore bands around and we take a look back at both of these pivotal records below.

Being into Horror Punk was never easy. You had bands like 45 Grave, The Groovie Ghoulies, and of course the kings of the genre, The Misfits but there wasn’t much more to choose from in the early to mid 90s. This all changed when a little band from Ukiah California popped onto the scene known as AFI in 1991. AFI (at that time) consisted of lead vocalist Davey Havok, drummer and backing vocalist Adam Carson, bassist, backing vocalist, and keyboardist Hunter Burgan, and guitarist, backing vocalist, and keyboardist Jade Puget. This lineup would give us the “All Hallow’s E.P.” and was also on their 1999 album “Black Sails In The Sunset” which truly brought out their darker, more brooding side.

The fine folks over at Craft Recordings have reissued these two albums for their 25th anniversaries and we were fortunate enough to receive copies to break down each one for ya. Craft Recordings has released both albums on special colorways for their anniversaries and recreated the original packaging for each one with immaculate precision.

BLACK SAILS IN THE SUNSET

If you wanted a more dark and even romantic AFI, “Black Sails In The Sunset” is a must-own album. The band truly explores their range as, not only a punk band; but as musicians in general. From the very first track, “Strength Through Wounding” we hear a difference in the band’s approach to recording. The voices in unison that sing out “Through Our Bleeding, We Are One” command your attention as Davey Havok comes in to champion the chorus like a mad scientist getting his creation ready for a night of terror.

The album from there descends into a straight punk rock banger of an album. Songs like “Porphyria”, “Exsanguination” and of course “God Called In Sick Today” have sing-along choruses you just can’t help but chime in on while listening. You can truly hear the difference the band made musically in the next track we really dig, “Malleus Maleficarium”. Davey Havok truly shines as a lyricist here and shows his range as a singer going from a whisper to a scream in less time than it takes to go around in a circle pit. The addition of “Weight Of Words” to the album kinda takes away from the overall aesthetic of the record but is a good finisher for fans who wanted a steady two-step dance number. It has your sing-along section and classic punk bass lines but we can see and hear why it was left off the original 1999 release of the album.

I’d be remiss to say that this record did anything for me but miss bands like “SAMHAIN” and “Type O Negative” but the record does get your toe tapping at times and can be super sorrowful at others. The way the band melds the highs with the lows and brings out a truly dark atmosphere just provides credibility to them as a powerhouse band. “Black Sails in The Sunset” is not for everyone but it will definitely be on our turntable leading up to Halloween and it should be on yours too.

ALL HALLOW’S E.P.

In the same year that “Black Sails In The Sunset” was released, AFI came out with a fun E.P. known as “All Hallow’s E.P.” This record was my official introduction to the band back in 1999 and the folks over at Craft Records did a number when they reissued this album. A perfect reproduction of the original “coffin” poster is included with this release and the colors for the sleeve itself pop and grab your attention. We also loved the fact that the whole album sleeve is black light reactive so if you have a party and throw this on the turn table with a black light, it would be only fitting and badass to do so.

With songs like “Fall Children”, “The Boy Who Destroyed The World” and “Totalimmortal”, “All Hallow’s E.P. should be where anyone not familiar with AFI should start. All the tracks mentioned could have been on “Black Sails In The Sunset” but for various reasons were left out to make this E.P. and it works better this way in our opinion. Our favorite track off this E.P. is the aforementioned “Totalimmortal”. It was even covered by The Offspring later on and had massive airplay. Check out the video for it below.

During this time the band was very into the spooky scene of things in the punk genre and of course, covered The Misfits song “Halloween” on this album as well. We are die-hard Misfits fans and truly, in our opinion, no one can top them when it comes to the label “Horror Punk” but AFI comes in a good 2nd place for this album alone. Some would say Davey Havok was channeling Glenn Danzig during this era with his songwriting as well as his style of dress for live performances. That’s up to you fiends to decide.

In the video below, you can see the band perform “Fall Children” live for the first time back in 1999. We had the opportunity to see AFI way back then but decided to go to the Samhain reunion instead. We made the right choice for ourselves back then but if AFI were ever to do a tour where both “Black Sails In The Sunset” and “All Hallow’s E.P.” were played front to back, we’d definitely have to buy a ticket.

You can now purchase both “Black Sails In The Sunset” and “All Hallow’s E.P. at Craft Recordings and see what other AFI albums they have on deck, trust us, you’ll want to add a few to your vinyl collections asap.

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