Album Review: Shallow Side - "One"

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A lot of people say that rock ’n’ roll is dead. Well, Shallow Side is out to prove the people who say “it’s dead” are dead wrong. The band from Cullman, Alabam released their new EP One on January 13th. It consists of six songs, one of which is a STYX cover.

The band stated that they were the one that “Wanted to go to a concert, enjoy the music, sing along, and be a part of the overall song and dance. We’re now looking to bridge that gap to bring the family together to where rock & roll was at one point.” That is essentially what they have done with this batch of songs.

After listening to the whole EP, I really enjoyed the song “Rebel” the most. It reminded me of real rock ’n’ roll that I’ve listened to with my dad. The song starts off with a recorded voice over and goes right into a guitar riff after that. The song has a really good chorus that could easily be sung along to at shows and make it easy for the band to engage the crowd. Vocalist, Eric Boatright, is singing about a whole bunch of things that he has done that people might not like, but he doesn’t care because he considers himself a rebel. That’s a good message for a band to have, because you shouldn’t care what other people think about you. Besides the overall message of the song, the vocals are incredibly powerful on this song and Boatright is not afraid to show that he has skills. There are some strong held out notes towards the end of the song that exemplify the his voice.

The other song that stuck out to me, but wasn’t my favorite, was “Fight or Flight”. It started off different from the other songs and it sounded different as well. The start has electronic elements to it which is the first time off the EP electronic elements were heard. That made the song stand out to me and the electronic elements popped up every now and then throughout the song. Besides that, the instrumentation in this song was more complex than the others, which made me want to listen intently. The guitars on this song had some catchy parts going on in the song and then there was normal and electronic drums which added to the song. It was one of the heavier ones on the EP.

I would highly recommend this EP if you’re a fan of rock music and haven’t been able to find something to listen to recently. Shallow Side knew what they were doing when they made this EP and they knew that rock needed to be revived. They add their own elements to the music while still keeping the classic parts that rock is know for.

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