VAMPIRE

Rex CENTURY MEDIA

Swedish underground grave robbers unleash their full horror

There’s always been a huge misunderstanding behind Vampire’s ‘next big thing’ underground status. The timing was perfect for their 2012 demo and it created an instant buzz, suggesting they were the potential heirs to Repugnant’s throne as the new finest dealers of arcane and gnarly death metal, only to take a more idiosyncrastic path. It’s taken them three albums to set the record straight, with Rex finally bringing all their latent urges to the fore. This isn’t a Lucio Fulci-like gorefest but rather a slick and gracefully retro Hammer Horror flick - a black/thrash album not filled with booze or cheesy imagery but short, to-the-point proper songs in the purest 80s tradition full of streamlined heavy metal licks, melodic solos and gothic-embossed horror. This is the sound of a nocturnal hunt in deepest Transylvania next to Sir Christopher Lee, yet with a typically Scandinavian flair. Now you know. ■■■■■■■■■■

FOR FANS OF: Bathory, Watain, Portrait

OLIVIER BADIN