Way back in the days when the kids were in constant combat with The Man, there were many albums released that were conceptually “heavy” that provided those hungry for knowledge and purpose with a soundtrack. Those days of youthful discontent may well have passed yet those deeper and darker thoughts can still provide musical inspiration with Vulture Party’s self-titled album diving deep into the spiritual abyss that threatens to swallow today.
That stylistic approach infers a certain bleakness and, seasoned with sweet smell of societal delay, this album positively revels in the monotonic power of the incantation. The pace varies little but the stories that live within the songs soon gel into something that, in conceptual terms, seems at odds with the simplicity of our plastic world and, as the organic and the synthetic attain their musical co-existence, you begin to believe that two will truly fit into one.
It also seems curiously appropriate for Vulture Party to appropriate the Moonlight Sonata to season “Betray Him Back” for there cannot be a more melancholic chord sequence in the entire universe and, with brooding isolationism holding the song together, the past soon becomes the replacement for the future. There is, as you might have concluded by now, little here to raise the spirits although the anthemic “Young Enough To See The Light” almost escapes its political undertones to reach out towards the light.
So, this isn’t an album that the Samaritans will use as music on hold yet, despite their determinedly downbeat approach, Vulture Party have given us an album that justifies the effort you might make to form an opinion on it. Perhaps nihilism is the new hope after all?
Best song? “Fear For My Child”.
The verdict? As deep and dark as a well.