I love how they are dressed normally!
I hope that the final photos would look as much natural as possible!
Not like BC&SL Goth-Heavy-Crap
Ugh, none of them really look any different. It's just them wearing their regular clothes and standing there expressionless, just like every photo shoot, including BCASL. There was nothing remotely goth about any of their photo shoots, unless Photoshopping in a cloudy sky is goth.
PICTURE!
SO METUHL. WHAT A HUGE DEPARTURE THEIR NEW PHOTOSHOOT IS!
Or maybe you also mean the SC photo shoot?
PICTURE!
So glad they're over that phase of wearing clothes and standing there.
What I would say, and this applies very much to the BCSL shoot and not at all to the SC or ADToE ones, is that in the BCSL shoot they're standing in grey or black environments, wearing grey or black clothes, with grey or black expressions.
I'm sure this is, in part, due to the title of the album - as are the photoshopped clouds - but it does make it look a lot more "planned," it looks very deliberate, like they're aiming for a particular vibe, and I also agree that the faux-sinister thing doesn't quite come off. Funnily, they're doing the exact same thing in this photoshoot, except the sky's blue, and Mike Mangini's t-shirt is blue. Which must mean he's dead, or Ringo's an auton, or something. I think the teeny bit more colour and the shinier environment go a long way. That people still remember the BCSL pics is probably as much a comment about how different they genuinely did feel as it is a barbed jab at MP's leadership and vision. Same shit, different details, but with something as "stock" and generic as a band photo, those details to tend to go much further than they might elsewhere.
...and I do have a t-shirt and a hoodie with both of the BCSL promo pics on, so I'm not slagging them off!