Very Proud Of Ya

There's a point in adolescence when all the bad grades, zits and hormones stop being funny and start being seriously traumatizing—and AFI's 1996 sophomore album, Very Proud Of Ya, marks that turning point in the group. Granted, there's still plenty of the old-school prankishness of their 1995 debut Answer That And Stay Fashionable, but the attack is tighter, beefier, and more focused. The biggest step forward, though, is the vocal harmonies that fuel-inject Davey Havok's outraged whine; the nearly collegiate-level hardcore of "Advances In Modern Technology" sounds almost like a brattier Bad Religion. There's still a lot of goofiness held over from Answer That—for instance, the middle-school wordplay of "Shatty Fatmas" and "Yürf Rendenmein"—but Very Proud Of Ya is the sound of young band growing up, albeit painfully and angrily. 

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