It’s 2013, and we start off the year with a release from one of the most talked about and divisive bands around right now, Black Veil Brides. Black Veil Brides have developed a massive fan base in their short ascendancy, but with that has come a massive amount of haters too, and so this release was always likely to be a major talking point.
First off, I must say that I admire Black Veil Brides’ ambition with this record. It’s a nine track concept album, complete with incredibly high production values. The album takes you on a bit of a journey as well, especially with the 3 spoken word pieces, the ‘F.E.A.R Transmissions’, courtesy of Wil Francis (formerly of Aiden and now of William Control). Black Veil Brides have produced some of their strongest material here, with the leading single ‘In The End’ and the great guitar riff on the second track of the album, ‘I Am Bulletproof’. There are a couple of other decent tracks on here such as ‘Resurrect the Sun’ and ‘New Years Day’, but unfortunately this album also has its share of stinkers. As it does with most bands similar to them, the really bad songs come in the form of their more ballad bassed songs, such as ‘Done For You’ and ‘Lost It All’. These tracks are just dreary and weak.
On the whole I think this album had good ideas, just with a pretty weak execution. 19 tracks is just too many. Did the world, and even Black Veil Brides’ current fan base, really need a 19 track concept album? Maybe if they had cut out the bad tracks and tweaked the average ones they may have been onto something good here. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
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