Goth-loving punks AFI -- A Fire Inside -- are the latest veteran underground band to make the leap to a major label. And, sadly, they're also the latest to stumble on the first rung of the big-league ladder.

Sing the Sorrow, their debut effort for DreamWorks, is a textbook case of a band that's simply trying too hard. Granted, anthemic tracks like Dancing Through Sunday are as good as anything the band has written.

Unfortunately, most of these 12 cuts have been stretched so long and thin you can almost see though them, then smothered under layers of meaningless Bob Ezrin-style sonic filler -- spooky sound effects, grandiose choral vocals, relentlessly swirling keyboards, clanging church bells, whispered incantations, you name it -- by producer Butch Vig and guitarist Jade Puget, who seems to have supplanted yelping singer Davey Havok as the band's dominant force. Pity.

If there's anything Sing the Sorrow desperately needs, it's a little more Havok.

Track Listing