THERE’S A CRISIS KNOCKING AT YOUR DOOR!
Two Decades since Alexisonfire’s Greatest Release
The year is 1977 and your field of vision is obscured by the color white. Like a night from the cold north of Westeros, the Blizzard of ‘77 struck New York and South Ontario with over 200cm of snow, leaving some houses nearly submerged. This disastrous storm is also the inspiration behind Canadian post-hardcore band Alexisonfire’s third studio album ‘Crisis’, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. To honor the milestone, the band performed the record in full (adding encore surprises from Watch Out!, Otherness and Old Crows / Young Cardinals) with shows across North America and Europe. Watching the full set from Manchester’s Outbreak Fest strengthened my attachment to Crisis and AOF, even when I thought my appreciation had reached its peak.
“A working man’s band”, as described by clean vocalist Dallas Green in their mini-documentary, represents Alexisonfire with utmost accuracy. Their lyrics never fail to elicit an emotional response and bring you closer to who you are – they achieve this through perfect balance between melodic riffs, immaculate rhythm, and genre-defining screams/vocals delivered in a heartfelt way. Crisis does this best; sincerity over simple chords reaches people, as sung in the album’s first track Drunks, Lovers, Sinners and Saints. The band’s most well-known song and a personal favorite; This Could be Anywhere in the World follows, setting the tone for the universality of what AOF’s music stands for.
Every song in the album captures the theme of complex emotions unique to the human experience, whilst evoking feelings of connectedness to others. The title track explicitly follows the inspiration behind the album and so does its cover; a photograph of a man’s heavily swollen and frostbitten hands. Appearing slightly unsettling at first glance, it serves as a reflection of someone’s reality at a rare point in time. This can take any form and brings to mind all the crises that perhaps are not knocking on our doors, but occur daily nevertheless.
Alexisonfire is Dallas Green and George Pettit on vocals, Wade MacNeil on guitar, Chris Steele on bass, and Jordan Hastings – Ratbeard on drums. As friends joining musical forces, they formed in St. Catherines in 2001 and have maintained a consistent line-up, apart from former drummer Jesse Ingelevics’s departure following their second release. With Ratbeard stepping in, the bandmates have reflected on the positive change he brought to their sound, his skill and creativity becoming crucial to what makes Alexisonfire the only band ever. For those unfamiliar, the story behind this label is based on adult film star Alexis Fire suing the band over copyright issues regarding her website domain. Their response was to change theirs to ‘theonlybandever.com’, turning it into an iconic joke in the scene.
Hopefully this answers your question of “who’s Alexis and why are they on fire??”
Happy (melancholy) listening!