AFI (Photo by Jiro Schneider)
Northern California punk rockers AFI return with a 10th studio album on Jan. 20 via Concord Music Group. The self-titled album is alternatively titled the “Blood Album” because of its cover artwork (featuring drops of blood), and it will include four limited vinyl color variants matching the four blood types (A | O | B | AB), according to a press release from the band.
Meanwhile, the quartet will launch “The Blood Tour” in Los Angeles on the day the album drops, and they will hit DC to perform at the 9:30 Club on Tuesday, Feb. 7.
A week ago, AFI released a video for “White Offerings” from the Blood Album. Watch the official music video on YouTube:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC93KhZRxUw]
Vocalist Davey Havok, guitarist Jade Puget, bassist Hunter Burgan, and drummer Adam Carson have been going strong since their sixth studio album, Sing the Sorrow, raised their national profile in 2003. The gents certainly have their own sound derived from hardcore punk, but they are first and foremost rock-n-rollers who put on a lively show.
Davey said AFI developed the Blood Album without an initial concept, noting, “No, that’s never really the case for us. We sit down and we begin writing and whichever direction the writing leads us, we follow, and if something comes out of us that we feel is too familiar, we generally don’t gravitate towards it, and conversely, when we’re writing something that comes out that is fresh and different for us within the context of AFI, we generally go in that direction, and that leads us to different places and different songs, and that was the case with the ‘Blood Record.'”
AFI
w/ Souvenirs
9:30 Club
Tuesday, Feb. 7
Doors @7pm
$30
All ages