Review Summary: Better than it could have been.
I was wondering when Andy Biersack would call John Feldmann again. After all, he brought a spark of style to a band that was more known for mimicking other successful acts with not much in terms of identity. After
Wretched and Divine, I began to see good potential in Black Veil Brides. However, this review is not about Black Veil Brides.
The Shadow Side is the debut album for Andy Biersack's Goth-Pop project Andy Black. It is a lot more designed for the mainstream than other music Andy is known for. One massive problem is in the lack of
They Don't Need to Understand in the album. It was a beautiful track with great percussion and vocals and it is borderline criminal how it is not included in this album. Despite that, the album does contain other great singles like
We Don't Have to Dance, a great pop track that mimics the general theme of
They Don't Need to Understand, but has less instruments playing and relies much more on synths and beats.
Stay Alive features Matt Skiba on guest vocals and has a much better flow to the whole song, there are no stiff rests and it runs along at a consistent pace which is nice.
Not everything on this album is good, however.
Ribcage has a redundant production and lyrics that repeat themselves endlessly.
Broken Pieces is too slow for the overall theme of the song and the choral chants are overused ad nauseum.
Homecoming King tries way too hard with the over-dubbing and ends up sounding out of place. For a bunch of songs, it seems like many of the songs were just filler. If that was the case, perhaps this would have been better off as an EP, but I digress.
The Void has a great pace and piano segment, not to mention the random saxophone that is slightly distorted. I enjoy the lyrics which discuss marching through a void in our hearts without the need of the ones who put us there. One thing I will give John Feldmann props for is his liberal use of different instruments, a perfect example is
Put The Gun Down which starts with different violins playing different parts at the same time while massive drums take control about thirty seconds down the line.
Drown Me Out doesn't exactly have the best start, but it is a great track with a nice use of distorted vocals and drums.
The Shadow Side has more good tracks than it does bad. That doesn't end the nagging feeling that this was a severe case of wasted potential, with its production and the hype that Andy attempted to build over the course of months. Regardless, The Shadow Side is a great album that shows the more jovial side of Andy Biersack's musical tastes, and gives more content to his fans. Though, most likely diehard Black Veil Brides fans will be turned off by its mainstream production and lyrical content. In a sense, Andy Black is yang to Black Veil Brides' yin, but one could also say they compliment each other just as much as they oppose each other.
