Review Summary: Bad Blood has the greatest improvements from the band, including dropping the abysmal lyrics and having stable, diverse beats on each song, but the album is still flawed.
For Blood on the Dance Floor, it hasn't been an easy path, as their bad reputation has been dragging their more recent accomplishments down with their abominable past. What is somewhat amusing, though, is that they did it to themselves by releasing all of those absolute tragedies before their fifth LP, "Evolution", while being completely oblivious to the fact that everyone was going to hate their music or take it as a joke, so you really can't be sorry for them. As for their released content, I feel as though that Evolution, The Anthem of the Outcast, and now, Bad Blood, are the only LPs and EP to be taken seriously by this duo, as to most people, it's the only listenable content that they have released. However, this album is their best to be released, as Blood on the Dance Floor has shown the most maturity between the span of Evolution and Bad Blood because of two key things: they kissed the sexually explicit lyrics goodbye and they didn't fill their tracklist with cheesy, spoken interludes.
When the LP begins with "Unchained", you may be already wanting to turn this album away because of the beginning verse. Dahvie is already spilling the lyrics about being underestimated, which is one of the reasons why this album is flawed. Dahvie obviously doesn't understand that the more he keeps writing music about him being judged by his past problems, the more that people will keep bringing it up to use against him. This is one problem of Blood on the Dance Floor's that needs to be patched and terminated quickly, otherwise they won't be able to reach the maturity level of an actual band. This does appear to be a big downfall of this album since four of the thirteen tracks are like this.
The big high-points of this album are their "touching" songs, if you would call them that. It may not be the most appropriate term to use, considering Dahvie's background with underage girls, yet it is the best way to describe these songs' styles. "Always and Forever", "Redeemer", "Divided We Fall", and "Something Grimm" are arguably the best tracks on Bad Blood because you can tell that they handled them with care. The beats were produced amazingly, and Jayy's vocals were best on "Redeemer", in my opinion.
Dahvie Vanity has his certain times to shine as well, though not as frequent as Jayy, including his beginning part on "Behomyth", and the album's title track, "Bad Blood", yet it feels as though that Jayy had a bigger impact on this album. He has more parts of his own, so Vanity learned how to share a spotlight (even though it wasn't very bright in the first place). Another high-point was how well Dahvie and Jayy clashed on "Revenge Will Have It's Day", as they worked out as a duo best here than on any track that they had recorded in the past (not to mention the amazing groove at the very beginning of the track).
Then, there comes another lowest point of the album: the whole track "I Refuse To Sink". I honestly hate this song with a burning passion, as it has the worst case of spoken lyrics ever, especially from Jayy's verse, which is very surprising, since it is usually Vanity's biggest problem. It's a big, unwanted mess, and definitely did not need to be on this album.
With the most significant changes on this album, both good and bad, "Bad Blood" is just one big grab bag that will bring in fans, both old and new, and push away others, whether they be ex-fans or people that just downright hate Blood on the Dance Floor. I do feel as though these two would be better at producing beats for other artists, as they don't deliver their lyrics with as much quality as they do with the beats that go with them. Blood on the Dance Floor learns the dos and don'ts of music, even though it may be one album at a time. Whether they keep learning or fall back down into the ***hole that they were in before, who knows.
Hey, at least they aren't under the same category as Brokencyde anymore, and everyone knows how awful they are...
Recommended Tracks:
Revenge Will Have It's Day
Always and Forever
Something Grimm
Redeemer
