What started off as a collaboration involving members of the Pink Panther Project has seemingly taken on a life of its own as the EBM infused gothic trio Virgin Vampires have risen in the dead of night to release their self-titled album. The three piece have apparently been busy with their creativity and have a good host of material they are working on, and this, their self-titled effort is the first offering of their work, promising intriguing expressions through the medium of electronica inspired gothic music with rock styled vocal leading the way. Synthwave meets Sisters of Mercy and VNV Nation? Who knows! Let us find out.
The first track, “The Strange House” has a cinematic and narrative feel to it, telling a story of an awakening from a child’s perspective. The serious vocal tone with the ominous Carpenter inspired synth and electronic drums has a great building effect and you can imagine it to be describing the opening scenes of a film or TV show. What the awakening is, is hard to put down, is it some sort of enlightenment or teenage sexual desire? I suppose it is on the listener to determine what the underlying theme is, but for the tracks’ good hook and intrigue, it ends flatly with no resolution which is a bit of a let down. “Broken” which follows next opens with some neoclassical harpsichord arrangement before it shifts into a filthy industrial beat. This is probably the high point of the album musically for me. The slow and steady rhythmic pounding of the beat with the droning bass wave and the haunting, stabbing keys has a massive hook which catches you and it is hard to stop your mind adding in the Ministry styled guitars backing this up. Vocally, it is a rich tapestry of electronic effect laden lines and venomously spat talking and aside from the pointless harpsichord, it is a fantastic track.
Sadly for Virgin Vampires, from here, it is all downhill.
With the excellent storytelling and atmospheric work on the opening track, then a raw and filthy gothic-industrial offering on ‘Broken’, everything else which follows just falls flat of the mark. “Butterfly On The Moon” has that vibe of hazy smoke, neon lights and night-time in the seedy underworld clubs but it lacks that killer punch which leads to the drop signalling a pick up in intensity. Whilst the musical arrangement might work well, the vocals are lifeless and uninspiring, severely hindering what had the potential to be a fantastic track. “Plastic Dreams” takes too long to kick in and its slow lumbering pace with the dull musical arrangement does little to engage. “The Silent Witness” is a little more upbeat once you get through the 50 seconds of droning white noise, but this laboured start holds things back once again. A busier and more intricate arrangement musically, it tries to latch onto you and the hazy vocals do work well here but the lack of variety in the arrangement just kills it off when you realise its almost 4 minutes of the same few bars.
“Virgin Vampires”, the titular track has a more infectious nature to it, channelling a synthwave heavy Sisters of Mercy vibe, but it lacks that flamboyance the Sisters have to make their tracks really stand out. It has a great rhythmic pulse and it does draw you in, but it lacks the personality to really make it stand out from the crowd of mediocrity. “Electric Pulse” is a dark trance-like number which has some moments, but its bland and uninspired vocal delivery which has been heavily digitized to add to the musical vibe of the track is just nonsensical scientific talk acts as the melodic variant to the repetitive beat and backing track. It certainly doesn’t power anything on or have that spark! “Heart So Frozen” takes 1 minute and 30 seconds to begin after a long, sustained keyboard chord with some flutterings of ambience behind it, and when it starts, it takes too long to pick up, disengaging you almost instantly. If you’re going to go with a long and dramatic build up, fucking do something to make it remarkable once it begins… Ugh. The digitizied vocals come in at the 2:30 point and like the previous track, they seem to carry the main melodic direction. You get the dull thud beat and repeated musical sequence trying to give a sense of building up, but it’s so tame and subdued and ultimately pointless as the track goes nowhere and accomplishes absolutely nothing.
“Mechanical Symphony” is a more intricately arranged techno inspired industrial effort along the lines of the earlier track ‘Electric Pulse’, but it has a lot more life in it. Faster paced with its driving pulse, the digitized vocals and buzzing effects with big synths actually break out into a real energetic number and after so much tedium, there is a track here which is actually good. It’s not quite ‘Broken’, but it will do after enduring the previous tracks! Closing the album is “Out Of Control” and once it picks up round the 30 second point, it’s another heavily industrialized track which has some great arrangements and atmospheric synth work, showing that there is some style and capacity for something decent in this outfit, but you have to really reach for it if you want something enjoyable.
In all, Virgin Vampires have really fallen flat with this debut album. You could cut tracks 3 to 8 from this album, release it as a 4 track EP and have more success and enjoyment out of it. The way the album plays out, it is almost like the trio put all their good ideas as the bookmarks and filled the rest of the album with scraps in the hope it added up to substance.
Whilst there are some elements of good compositional work and sequencing and arrangements, this album misses the mark on so many levels and it really lacks that killer hook which draws you in. It’s almost like this Vampire has lost its fangs and cannot get the blood out… No wonder it’s called Virgin Vampires.
(4/10 Fraggle)
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