Review Summary: In three words: Unoriginal, Bland, and Boring.
As most of you are aware by now, Black Veil Brides are one of the biggest bands in the world at the moment. 'emo' kids (who have no idea what emo actually is) all over the world love them, and declare themselves part of the 'BVB Army'. On the other hand, they are hated by a lot of people, mostly for their ridiculous image (a friend of mine described them as looking like 'the hookers from Halloweentown'). However, do they deserve the admiration/hate that that they receive?
Well, I'm going to look at 'We Stitch These Wounds' and then decide on whether or not they deserve their hate and admiration.
Now, I shall start off by saying that the guitarists are pretty talented, and the guitar lines are pretty well written. However, this doesn't save the music from being generic, bland and boring. The riffs are just generic Post Hardcore riffs which don't compare to riffs done by bands such as Alexisonfire and Thrice.
It also doesn't help matters that the majority of songs that litter 'We Stitch These Wounds' sound very samey. You could swap most the riffs on this album around, and it will provide little to no difference.
Another factor which drags this album down is that the songs contained on this album are pretty bland and boring. While the guitarists are talented, they failed to make the music interesting and gripping. The songs don't stand out at all amongst the sea of Post Hardcore/Metalcore bands around at the moment. While I'm a fan of Post Hardcore, I admit it has been done to death, and there are a sea of bands that sound the same.
The one feature that sets BVB apart from their tonnes of clones is their singer Andy Bierseck. I cannot stand his monotone voice, and it is something which makes me despise this band more then I do already.
Just before I round this off, there is one song I'm going to pick out to talk about
: Knives and Pens. This is (in my opinion) the best song on the album, probably because it's the only one where Andy's voice doesn't make my ears bleed. However, it's still pretty generic, and the intro is a rip off of Avenged Sevenfold's Unholy Confessions.
Now, my conclusion. While the band may not deserve all the hate they get, they certainly are not worthy of all the admiration they recieve. They are just another Post Hardcore band who are only famous because of their image, when it's supposed to be about the music. Their image is also what gets them a lot of hate, which is also ridiculous. While I dislike them, I dislike them because their music bores me, not because they look like rejects from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
