AMG Review of Ugly Side: An Acoustic Evening with Blue October

James Christopher Monger
All Music Guide

Ugly Side: An Acoustic Evening with Blue October finds the platinum-selling, Texas-based quintet toning things down a bit, but that doesn’t mean that the group’s penchant for doling out copious amounts of angsty melodrama has been completely diluted. Recorded live in Austin, Dallas, and Houston, Texas in the summer of 2010, Ugly Side manages to feel both intimate and expansive, offering up 11 of the band's most notable songs, including “Dirt Room,” “Into the Ocean,” and the surging title cut, the latter of which is augmented by reverb-drenched strings and propelled into the nosebleed section by Justin Furstenfeld's desperate caterwaul.