Blood On The Dance Floor

Bad Blood

Written by: TL on 29/12/2013 16:33:37

I don't know what's worse about Florida duo Blood On The Dance Floor - their name or their perennially terrible album art - but I do know that the only thing that's worse than both is the depressing fact that they've somehow made it to studio album number six since forming in 2007. Moreover, the only thing that's worse than all those facts put together is what Dahvie Vanity and Jayy Von Monroe's sound is like. On last year's "Anthem Of The Outcast EP" the band veered from the "cheap laptop techno" of their past into music with actual instruments, putting them on Rockfreaks.net's radar in Rockfreaks.net's crosshairs and securing them this review. Yet on this year's "Bad Blood" it's back to buttons, creating a style that sounds like Eminem with racoon tails rapping over rip-offs of last year's electronic trends like Skrillex, Baauer, etc.

All you need to get the idea is to check out "Damaged" for instance, the bass drops of which are clearly Skrillex imitations while the sirens in the back of "I Refuse To Sink" sound almost exactly like Baauer's infamous "Harlem Shake". The primary variety from this comes when the duo flashes their softer side on the likes of "Always And Forever" and "Divided We Fall", both of which are sickeningly sappy ballads with such transparently vague displays of lyrical affection, that they can handily be applied to whatever heart-broken situation the listener is in, without exposing anything personal or urgent from the band's side.

Otherwise the beats and attitudes are mostly kept hard-pumped and full of bravado, as Monroe raps and Vanity moans, often sneering at the adversity they face for "being different". It feels like +10 cuts of Chris Crocker crying "leave Blood On The Dance Floor aloooone" while leftovers from the last LMFAO record play in the background. And perhaps it would invoke a measure of sympathy if it wasn't for the following two reasons: 1) The lyrics are terribad. No matter how hard you have it, I think you need to reconsider when you liken your taking criticism from haters (and I'm guessing; reviewers) to getting "crucified like Jesus" on "Crucified By Your Lies" or when you rhyme "working class" with "greedy ass" on bonus track "Sick Sad World". 2) From their looks through their artwork to their lyrics, Blood On The Dance Floor do everything they can to stoke their conflicts. Their whole self-created concept is being in juvenile opposition to some unequivocally evil force of normality and without it they would have nothing.

People often ask me how many times I listen to an album before writing a review of it, and normally my answer is "at least somewhere around ten times". With record like "Bad Blood", the answer is one and a half. You may not find that it makes for a very serious review, but hello there, are Blood On The Dance Floor doing a single thing to be taken seriously? By now they must know that articles like this come out of it when they send the records in for review, and I would actually be surprised if they weren't doing it anyway, because they know that controversy and offensiveness is all their band has to offer.

Obviously Blood On The Dance Floor don't make music for reviewers though, or for people who read reviews (or perhaps even for people who read at all?). Everything about them has "teenage minority sensation" written all over it and having not quite forgotten my own years of rebellion, I still get that. Seriously though, troubled teens of the world, might I suggest My Chemical Romance instead? Or AFI? For the love of God, how about Black Veil Brides? That's right, after listening to "Bad Blood" I start to consider Andy 'Sixx' Biersack and his fellow KISS enthusiasts as upstanding role models in comparison. I even start to feel like I might be able to put on a Lostprophets record and not feel like I need a shower, and ultimately I wonder how many before me have written that Michael Jackson must be turning in his grave to have inspired the name of a band like this. So here's a mark for each time I'm willing to let myself be tortured by this under obligation to write this blurb. Moving on.

Download: No. Just no.
For The Fans Of: Insane Clown Posse, The Bunny The Bear, Ronnie Radke
Listen: facebook.com/bloodonthedancefloor

Release Date 03.09.2013
Dark Fantasy Records

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