the vampire project
Reviewed by Dorothy Pawlowski
Published: 7 January 2010
ep: self titled
This is the self/un-titled debut EP from Adelaide 4 piece The Vampire Project . As far as I can tell, this band have been doing their thing since at least 2006 and have met with some degree of local success, having a track included in David De Vries’ 2009 released film “Carmilla Hyde” and clocking up a nomination in the dB Readers’ Choice Awards. Their line-up is the rock standard of drums, guitar x 2 and bass, with the guitar and drums represented by what appears to be a brother combo. So much for MySpace.
The Vampire Project label themselves as “Alternative/ Gothic/ Rock” and certainly these influences are here present as well as an overall urbanity complemented by tight performance and production both. The EP opens with 'Suicide', a catchy up-tempo rock ballad, the guitar in which reminded me strangely of early U2. There’s a nice line in back-up vocal harmonies and under-mixed growlies on this song and I can see why it why it was chosen as an opener. What with the thumping bass and Edge guitar, plus the chugging in the choruses, the word “Eighties” became firmly lodged in my head.
Track 2 'Change' opens with a quietly melodic intro followed by a rhythmic build-up which eventually erupts into an explosion of hard rock, before reverting to the intro riff with vocals. The vocals are here (as everywhere) carried off confidently if a little aimlessly for my tastes and the track in general offers definite climactic points before restating the opening riff. I had issues with the kick drum production in the rock-out bits (it got lost in mush) as well as the fret noise from the bass guitar during the intro (I’m not sure if this was intentional but it annoyed the hell out of me), however these are small points and as stated before, the production overall was characteristic of the high standards I’ve come to expect from music tracked at Fish Shop Studios. At 4:29 this is a longish track by pop music standards, however, in terms of development within this genre of music it could be a little short – it seemed to me that there was more to say.
'Saviour' is the 3rd track and opens much like 'Change' although it opens up into hard rock much more quickly. This song is edgier all around although still lyrical and the back-up vocals in the chorus are effective in their use of distortion which can be a tricky thing to mix well. At 5:14 duration this is the longest piece on the EP and features that dive sideways into definitely-metal territory that I felt was lacking in the previous track, along with some screamo to perk things up somewhat.
The CD finishes with 'Bloody Kisses (acoustic version)', and this is probably the most interesting and shortest track on offer with interestingly scratchy drum production (or was it a machine?), lovely piano and violin and lonely, melodic vocal work by singer Koral Chandler, a direction that I would like to see this band explore further. In general, The Vampire Project have offered us a nice, tight first release well worthy of a spin.
