Longtime riders of the wave of the industrial revolution of the early 90s, Godhead has outlasted many of their more commercially successful peers without managing a similar breakthrough of their own while the stylistic iron was still hot. Somewhere along the line (not sure where, as this is my first exposure to them, aside from their forgettable, gothed out cover of “Eleanor Rigby”), the band must have made the transition from disaffected youth to pragmatic adulthood, because The Shadow Line sounds like Godhead has traded its pretty hate machine in on a late model mini van. This album is so sterile you could snap it in half and cut out your roommate’s appendix. Take away the quarter inch layer red herring of industrial accents, and The Shadow Line is pure pop saccharine. Radio ready, ex-goth chick-turned -mom pleasin’ pop music. As such, it fares reasonably well–the band has a strong sense of hook and The Shadow Line is a competent, professional effort thats most significant shortcoming is an overwhelming absence of fire. It’s not an awful album, just an awfully plain one. The arrangements are often well conceived and the instrumentation and vocals are quite solid. There are moments when the band meanders toward more interesting (or at least heavier) material (most notably on “Hey You"), but these seem like the last vestiges of a band that has almost completely evolved into something else. Unless you’re already on board with these guys, it’s very unlikely The Shadow Line offers anything for which you’d want to interrupt a steady diet of metal.