ALBUM REVIEW: Wampire 'Bazaar'

Rating:

Portland-based synth-pop outfit Wampire have had an exciting twelve months. Following the release of their debut album ‘Curiosity’ last year, the band have been elevated to new heights, scoring themselves enviable support slots alongside their sonic-contemporaries Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Smith Westerns, and Foxygen. What emerged from this period of high-profile touring, intense writing, and full immersion in their craft was a new, refined sound. Moving away from the dancey, sugar-coated pop of their debut, Wampire seem to have honed in some of the darker elements of their sound to create ‘Bazaar’. Taking note from the album’s title itself, the ‘Bazaar’ has a ‘circus-of-freaks’ vibe about it; gothic, bohemian, and downright strange.

The album’s opening track, ‘The Amazing Heart Attack’ sets the tone for the album as a whole, opening with demonic laughter and a melody of ice-cold synth, a track that wouldn’t seem out of place in the score to Wes Craven’s ‘Nightmare on Elm’s Street’. It seems Wampire have become increasingly open to experimentation on this album. From the complex and jazzy saxophone on ‘Fly on the Wall’, pitch-bending on ‘People of Earth’ to their clear love of organs and all things analogue prevailing throughout the majority of the album, it is Wampire’s clear love of the alternative that makes them standing out from bands of a similar scene. The band have ditched the drum machine rhythms of their previous album for thundering complex drum tracks, no doubt the result of the addition of new touring drummer Thomas Hoganson, who brings a desert/stoner rock feel to many of the tracks on the album. Lead single ‘Wizard Staff’ seems to encapsulate the mood of the album as a whole, featuring a slow, grooving bassline, horn melodies and frontman Eric Phillips’ sultry vocals.

It seems Wampire have taken a huge leap on this album. In just over 30 minutes total playtime, the band have created a new brand of lo-fi gothic-psychedelica that is as complex as it is listenable. The bands light-hearted, almost satirical take on the psychedelic genre is one that comes as a breath of fresh air in a scene of bands seemingly unable to look forward at the future of the genre itself. After a year of intense touring and new possibilities, Wampire have created an albums that as a whole seems to garner a dark, 80s influenced sensibility, equal parts sexy and shamelessly cheesy.

Sam Prosser

@samprosser_