When it comes to bands rereleasing albums, I have to admit that I’m always a little sceptical of them. They can be viewed as a great big middle finger in the faces of the loyal fans who supported the band enough to buy the album on release date, and they can also be seen as cashing in on the more hardcore fans who’ll buy a copy of the album for a second time just to get the bonus tracks. It just seems a little unfair.
As a whole, This Is How The Wind Shifts: Addendum is a pretty good release. There aren’t any surprises, with the album following the same usual Silverstein format with huge singalong choruses and harsh vocals backed up with a lot of melody, but it’s a strong offering all the same. A particular highlight is the opener Stand Amid The Roar, which is one of the best songs the band have ever written and it naturally features one of their signature huge choruses with slick guitar lines and the track as a whole is so catchy it hurts.
There are some weaker tracks, such as With Second Changes, which sounds a bit like a carbon copy of their track You’re All I Have from their 2009 album A Shipwreck In The Sand, but overall there isn’t a single song that stands out as being bad, so there are no real problems with the album as a whole.
As far as the bonus tracks go, the full band ones seem more tacked-on than anything else, like they’re songs that haven’t quite made the grade with none of them having the wow factor and nothing quite standing out about them. The acoustic tracks are a nice little addition, however, with Massachusetts in particular translating fantastically into a softer and gentler format. It’s always interesting to see how a band’s songs sound acoustically, especially with a band like Silverstein, and these certainly don’t disappoint.
If you haven’t got your hands on a copy of This Is How The Wind Shifts yet, then you should certainly buy the rerelease for the great acoustic tracks, but it’s not really worth buying a second copy if you bought it on release date.
7/10
