Review Summary: One for the fans.
Before beginning this review, there is one very important question that needs to be asked: has there ever been a really good remix album? I’m not talking about songs that have been transformed into half-decent dancefloor versions of the originals – I’m talking about remix albums that have been absolutely necessary or contributed to an artist’s discography positively. The one that always got mentioned back in school was Linkin Park’s
Reanimation and that did nothing for me. Or what about Bring Me the Horizon’s
Suicide Season: Cut Up, which took an already horrible album and made it worse? No thanks. As far as good remix albums go, there are certainly none that I am aware of.
Unfortunately, Godhead’s
The Shadow Realigned isn’t going to do anything to change my mind. Being fairly unfamiliar with the band’s back catalogue, I’m unable to say whether the versions presented here are superior to the originals. From what I have heard, however, there isn’t much on
The Shadow Realigned that even comes close to the better songs in Godhead’s discography.
There are a few decent ventures:
“Inside Your World (Dark Moon Remix)” is quite good; the heavy riffs are kept intact but with an ethereal electronic twist.
“Your End of Days (Jamison Boaz Remix)” is somewhat reminiscent of Muse and is one of the few songs that are really effective in adopting a more atmospheric, textured approach. The unreleased track,
“To Heal” shows what Godhead are capable of when they don’t allow other people interfere with their music.
Most of the album, though, consists of feeble reinterpretations of songs from 2006’s
The Shadow Line (which is curiously not even the band’s most recent release). I don’t know whether the original versions were any good to begin with but it shouldn’t matter - the songs as they are presented here are just not that great. With that said there is also nothing here that could be considered particularly offensive, so
The Shadow Realigned might find its place as background music for a party (as long as your friends always wear only black and generally aren’t into having a good time).
In short,
The Shadow Realignedcould best be considered a release ‘for the fans’. However, it does little to justify its existence, with remixes that neither re-imagine the songs for a dancefloor setting or stand alone as interesting musical experiments. While the list of producers seems to suggest that the latter was Godhead’s aim, most of the songs unfortunately do not succeed in providing appealing new takes on the originals. This is one for collectors and collectors only.
