To the uninitiated, Black Veil Brides are five young men who look and sound pretty much like ‘80s hair metal horrors Motley Crűe – but with a hefty dollop of emo attitude on top. They may be the kings of hard rock cliché but it hasn’t stopped them from selling ridiculous amounts of albums right from their 2010 debut, We Stitch These Wounds.
Black Veil Brides IV is, unsurprisingly, the band’s fourth album and sees them taking on the woes of the world with a bagful of jolly ditties going under titles such as “Drag Me To The Grave” and “World Of Sacrifice”. “You want a fight. I’ll bring the war” declares vocalist Andy Biersack on “Heart Of Fire”. At which point, a tune that had been characterised by riffs aplenty and looked like it might be going somewhere, lurches into weedy soft rock territory for the chorus and then a bout of Eddie Van Halen-style guitar fretboard noodling. Perhaps Biersack isn’t the martial type after all.
Again and again, the tunes on Black Veil Brides IV look like they might be about to do something interesting before the band lose their nerve and revert to the unthreatening bluster of corporate hard rock. “Faithless” starts with the kind of helicopter drumming that brings to mind underground metal-heads Wolves In The Throne Room but it’s fleeting. “Devil In The Mirror” has dashes of Al Jourgensen’s industrial rockers Revolting Cocks, while “Stolen Omen” features some Mastodon-sized riffs and some throat-shredding vocals but again, both soon slide back into familiar territory.
Black Veil Brides IV is a frustrating album because it suggests that Black Veil Brides are capable of stretching themselves beyond the hair metal and emo clichés. Unfortunately, they seem to lack the confidence to take the plunge.