Black Veil Brides are 20 years into this and, after a near-five-year recording gap, they’ve just dropped Vindicate — their seventh album and by most accounts their sharpest in some time. The Vindicatour’s second North American leg hits Emo’s Austin on Monday, August 31. A 1,700-capacity club booking says what it needs to say about where the band sits in the market: not a nostalgia act filling an arena, and not playing to a cult in a smaller room. They’re somewhere in between, which is interesting.
About Black Veil Brides
Formed in Cincinnati in 2006 by Andy Biersack — the sole founding member still in the lineup — Black Veil Brides relocated to Hollywood and built a global following on Kiss-influenced theatrical hard rock, dark stage aesthetics, and hooks engineered to play in rooms like this one. Today’s lineup is Biersack on vocals, Jake Pitts on lead guitar, Jinxx on guitar and violin, Christian “CC” Coma on drums, and Lonny Eagleton on bass.
Vindicate landed May 8 on Spinefarm Records, and Kerrang! handed it a 4/5 — calling it “shellshock-inducing” and praising the band as “creatively freed.” The title track layers a Broadway-style chorus over detuned nu metal. “Revenger,” featuring Robb Flynn of Machine Head, lands as possibly the most brutish thing they’ve recorded. “Ave Maria” and “Bleeders” both drew strong critical notice. Fourteen tracks, 45 minutes, no hedging.
About Emo’s Austin
Emo’s Austin is carrying one of this city’s most loaded venue names. The original opened on Red River in 1992, ran as Austin’s punk epicenter for nearly two decades, and closed in 2011 — that Red River location is now folded into the Stubb’s footprint. The brand survived the relocation to East Riverside, where it now operates as a 1,700-cap Live Nation room. It books above Mohawk and below Stubb’s outdoor, which is right where this bill lands.
Tickets & Show Details
Support for the Austin date comes from Caskets (post-hardcore/metalcore), Archers (rock), and Holy Wars (thrash/heavy metal). The opener package is worth showing up early for.
Show starts at 5:30 PM on Monday, August 31. Tickets are on sale now via Ticketmaster. Find more Austin concerts on the calendar.