Reception
Beneath the Shadows received positive reviews from critics. Allmusic's Bradley Torreano remarks that the album "blew away all the preconceived notions about the group's sound. T.S.O.L. had put out a record that equaled Meat Loaf when it came to sheer sonic pomposity but still retained their gothic punk leanings. Fans were mildly confused, but the band garnered rave reviews". Robert Christgau gave the album a "B" score, criticizing Grisham's lyrics as uninteresting but calling the musicality "so robust and determined it blows all suspicions of nostalgia away."
Joe Viglione of Allmusic rated the album 4½ stars out of 5, praising Wilson's production, Grisham's questioning vocals, and the clever nuances of Keuhn's keyboards: "Rather than merely copying, T.S.O.L. are exploring. The anti-thesis of 'The Sound of Philadelphia' by MFSB from the disco decade before, there's enough slashing strings and artistry here to satisfy the most rabid fan of true rock & roll when college radio and rock stations forget what they're supposed to be playing. It's there in the evaporated love turned to anger in 'Wash Away', as well as on the closing garage sounds of 'Waiting for You'. Heartbroken choruses which garner the band a Grade A for this excellent effort."
Such positive reviews led T.S.O.L. to be included, along with fellow Southern California punk groups D.I. and The Vandals, in director Penelope Spheeris' film Suburbia (1983). T.S.O.L. appears in the film performing "Wash Away" from Beneath the Shadows and "Darker My Love", an otherwise unreleased song.
Despite the warm critical reception, the band's change in musical direction confused and alienated their hardcore audiences. Mike Boehm of the Los Angeles Times commented that "Beneath the Shadows was drenched in rainy romanticism accented by glistening piano and synthesizer shimmers. The album disregarded punk's sonic and attitudinal boundaries and effectively ended the punk chapter of T.S.O.L.'s career." Steven Blush, author of American Hardcore: A Tribal History, writes that "the experimental nature of '82's Weathered Statues EP bewildered some fans, but T.S.O.L. lost their hard-to-please fanbase overnight with '83's Beneath the Shadows LP. As a wave of hardcore bands tried a more 'mature' sound in the vein of The Damned, it made sense at the time, but constituted a suicidal career move. Too bad, as Beneath the Shadows sounded powerful and progressive." According to Grisham, the use of synthesizers was unpopular with the hardcore punk crowd:
The trouble with being a popular band is that all your changes are aired for the public. So yeah, we ventured and a lot of the stuff went too far. But how do you know where you are if you don't go too far? Using synthesizers wasn't popular with hardcore. To be honest, a lot of the synth sounds at that time weren't very good, but we went for it. I've met a lot of people who say "That record was cool." At the time, it was...for me, at least.
Critic Jack Rabid, editor of The Big Takeover, has called Beneath the Shadows "one of the finest U.S. post-punk LPs ever" and cites audiences' rejection of it as a turning point in his dissatisfaction with hardcore:
Beneath the Shadows being rejected by the hardcore scene was the final straw for me, after many, many straws. Here was this most fascinating outgrowth of punk — they could've been our Damned or Siouxsie and the Banshees — retaining the original guts and drive, taking it into this unique direction. The hardcore audience rejected them, the rock & roll audience figured they were still hardcore, so there was no audience for the music. They broke up. It was a very bad time. It became a rugby game with no meaning.
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