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The California alternative metal band AFI are as well known within the metal community for their changing sound as they are for their actual songs. Most fans agrees that AFI's early, hardcore-leaning independent albums were the stuff of genius, but the band has succeeded in polarizing their large fan-base by releasing a series of polished, major label albums that flirt with pop and 80's glam. AFI, which stands for "A Fire Inside", have been playing together in some form since the band members were all in high school. However, the only constant member of AFI since this larval stage has been the front-man Davey Havok. This makes Davey's voice, a powerful, rasping wail; one of the few constant's to unify the band's several phases. Between 1991 and 1995, the AFI released a series of well-received hardcore EP's, including Dork, Behind the Times, This Is Berkley Not West Bay and Fly In the Ointment. The band was now a well-respected fixture of the NorCal hardcore scene, and their first two full-length albums-Answer That And Stay Fashionable and Very Proud of Ya were released on Nitro records. As AFI toured to support the albums, they underwent several lineup changes. 1999 was a big year for AFI. That year, they released their genre-bending classic Black Sails in the Sunset, which many consider to be the band's best LP. Fans were shocked to notice that the snotty hardcore of the EP days was gone, replaced by a somber, frightening dark romanticism. Some fans labeled it goth or horrorpunk, but AFI's original musicianship was still readily apparent. Tracks like "God Called In Sick Today", "Strength Through Wounding" and "Exsanguination" managed to be both beautiful and brutal, and it's a telling tribute that the band includes excerpts of the poem "De Profundis Clamavi" by Charles Baudelaire on the album's hidden track. AFI then had their first taste of commercial success with the single "The Days of the Phoenix" off of their follow-up album The Art of Drowning.

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