Old Crows, Old Material

For my first official review, I have chosen Canadian quintet Alexisonfire's fourth album, Old Crows/Young Cardinals (Vagrant, 2009).

I'll admit, I was a little bit skeptical when I heard the single "Young Cardinals" via the band's MySpace a couple weeks before its release, but soon I grew to love the song and the video (featuring the band playing live on a boat as it travels through some probably-Canadian waterfall attraction thing. Correct me, elitist Internet bro).

But it seems Alexisonfire are finally at that turning point that virtually every band faces. They've grown old, matured, seen some shit - so how will they let that affect their music?

Unfortunately, in Old Crows/Young Cardinals, AOF let their sound become almost totally obliterated by the themes that now affect them more and more as a maturing band. Issues such as globalization, global warming and religion saturate nearly every corner of this album. They even go as far as to write an anti-American anthem ("Sons of Privilege"), which is brutally honest (and mostly true) but rather off-putting from a band who originally named themselves after a contortionist-lactating stripper. We get it. You're Canadian and you hate America. Join the club.

Songs like this consume almost the entire album. On "Heading for the Sun," vocalist and guitarist Dallas Green slams the theme of the song down our throats. "Time will come when we are all condemned/for all the damage we have done... We are heading for the sun!" Alright, alright! We get it! Global warming. Globalization. Blah, blah, blah.

The point is, it's hard to make a song both musically and lyrically interesting, and further, worthy of singing along, when your lyrics reek of year-old CNN headlines and American Presidential debate questions.

Also strangely not present in the new album is AOF's eclectic song writing abilities. The album contains 11 tracks, and about 6 or 7 of them sound the same. Did we all forget how only 5 years ago they kicked off Watch Out! (Equal Vision 2004) with "Accidents," a sing-along anthem for the ages, and followed it by taking our breath away with the slowed down "It Was Fear..."?

The album isn't completely void of anything good. Where AOF shines is, somewhat sadly, where they continue their past trends. The split title tracks "Old Crows" and "Young Cardinals" are possibly the two best songs on the album. "The Northern" is a slowed down take on a religious hymn ("Roll Jordan, Roll") which might be a terrifying concept if it weren't so damn haunting and groovin'. Finally, "Accept Crime" contains some of that AOF vigor and youthfulness that I truly wanted throughout this new album.

Overall, though, this album lacks the gusto, energy, and downright talented songwriting from previous AOF releases, making the songs feel, well, old. Instead of taking the audience on a journey, with peaks and valleys, as they have with every other album, they fall to the routine of just writing 11 songs and not an album.

Final: 6.5 out of 10
Tracks to Check Out: "Accept Crime" "Young Cardinals"