Album Review: Bela & The Lugosis - "Vampire Kiss"

 

Hailing from Glasgow, Bela & The Lugosis describe themselves as a "neo-goth-glam-punk band" which is pretty much a slam dunk in terms of the music we enjoy covering here at Nite Songs so it's safe to say that we were pretty soundly intrigued when Vampire Kiss landed in our inbox.

It gets off to a bit of an odd start with We're Getting It On sounding like Adam & The Ants' Prince Charming but not of the same quality - it sounds more like an intro track stretched out to three minutes than an opener proper. That duly arrives though with The Heart Makes Love Possible which combines chiming Buzzcocks guitars with Bowie style vocals in a way that really has no right to work but somehow does.

Vampire Kiss is an endearingly odd album - listening to a track like She Moves Me which takes a Sisters-style overwrought goth ballad then whacks pounding '70s glam rock drums (complete with handclaps!) on it, you certainly can't accuse this group of playing things safe! As you'd maybe expect, there's a few times where the ingredients don't quite sit right - Happiness Is A Warm Body is a brave attempt whacking goth dramatics onto a big '60s style ballad which unfortunately just doesn't really go anywhere and No Meat Monday is just throwaway but the likes of the stomping Patricia Villas and the sinister Like A Hurricane show what they can do when they get the formula right.

I get the impression that Bela & The Lugosis are more of a work in progress than the finished article at the moment but this is certainly a band with plenty of potential. With a bit of extra focus and maybe a bigger recording budget (if someone's willing to take a chance on 'em, I can certainly think of worse bands to back!) next time out then I feel that they genuinely could come up with something amazing. For now, they're a slightly messy but enjoyably scuzzy group of ghoul rockers in training. Keep an eye on 'em.

Bandcamp Link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑🌑 (7/10)

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