Shadows On Your Side 2025 Review

28 Hours Later Review

In recent years, the BBC has chosen to step back in time and revisit classic episodes of 1960s Doctor Who - and rerelease them in a drastically edited and colourised form. The backlash was predictable. ‘How dare they tamper with genius!’ ‘Who do the BBC think they are?!’ ‘They’ve desecrated our childhoods!’. 

Inevitably, this was followed by the backlash against the backlash - with many fans countering that the original episodes from yesteryear are still available to be watched and enjoyed in their original and unedited black and white form. No new versions or reworkings are changing that. Which brings us onto the Danse Macabre era version of Shadows On Your Side…

Expectations were high for a spookier Halloween reworking of the sublime 1983 album track - a song that often pops up in the ‘shoulda been a single’ debates that will haunt fandom for the rest of eternity. And then it dropped onto the streaming platforms in its entirety. Ohmygodwhatsthis?!

My initial reaction was downcast to say the least. What have they done?! This makes Yo Bad Azizi look like Ordinary World! What a wasted opportunity! Mark Ronson wouldn’t have let them do this! This isn’t the Shadows On Your Side we know and love! No way is THIS going to chart!

I struggled to get beyond the song’s first couple of minutes. It felt like they’d dismembered a beautiful body and put back the limbs in the wrong places and unleashed Frankenstein’s Monster as drawn by a drunken Salvador Dali. Sure, there’s a bit at the end - if you can make it that far - that sounds just like the original. But that’s a bit like being waterboarded and then being served a comfortingly familiar mug of warm, honey-infused tea afterwards.

And then, dear reader, a little bit of time passed… I slept on it… and I listened again. And again. And again.

28 hours later and I have the new Shadows stuck on repeat, pumping dopamine into my addled brain with every listen. There’s been an interesting transition away from familiarity towards an unknown that now too is starting to feel familiar. The striking drum breakdown now feels epic to my ears. The duel between Andy’s bolts of guitar and Nick’s bursts of synth firing at each other now feels joyous and playful. (Is there a greater example of internal band dynamics than that section of music?)

When the song’s dismembered body parts finally find each other and combine in unison, it leads to a euphoric last minute or so that gives us a palpable nostalgia hit of the original track. But there’s no way that climax would feel so heightened without the first couple of minutes of edging and teasing.

Compared to the cohesive yet jam-packed original, Shadows 2025 uses sonic space very differently and allows a lot of the various individual hooks to breathe in isolation. I can imagine this version of the song being quite a transcendent experience to watch live - should they perform this version at the upcoming Manchester Halloween concert.

I really respect Duran Duran’s decision to be bold with this new version - picking apart its flesh like a rabid zombie to create something new. It begs the question - did we really want the band to release pretty much the same song as they did in 1983? What would be the point of that?

Shadows 2025 is unpredictable. It’s unfamiliar. It’s challenging. At least for the first few listens. And for me, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The original 1983 version still rocks. It hasn’t been erased. This new version might not be everyone’s cup of tea - but give me that over a bland, unimaginative retread of the original any day of the week. Especially if that day is October 31st.