Track Listing
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opening
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Vampire Ecstasy
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Freeeeze!!
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Terror Vixen
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Hana no Sakigake
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THE REPOMAN
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Preservative Woman
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Crimson Tyrant
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S.O.B
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Disco King
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Banburo Koubou
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Murealism
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PNFPN
1. opening
Haha, the opening to this album is so freaky with some guy speaking in a creepy kind of way. No idea what he’s saying, but I can wonder right? A minute in the song, the song kind of starts up with a quite psychotic mish-mash of voices and a heavy beat. Strange, but cool nonetheless. At the 2 minute mark, more music comes in to round out the opening. Interesting opening. Sweet that it ends with the guy announcing the group.
2. Vampire Ecstasy
Our first song from the album definitly shows off the darkwave style AV is producing and surely it’s a pretty creepy track. Now since I’ve heard the remix before the main track, I was taken aback with the synth sound and how EXO-CHIKA was singing the track. I have to say the the time trip-ups make the song more cooler than the remix IMO. Definitly a great vocal track.
3. Freeeze!!
Just like the last track, I hear some snippets of horror films and that gives AV a pretty interesting way to take their songs. It’s kind of like the last track with the dark synths and EXO-CHIKA’s cold vocals. In some way I like how she does it, but I want her to get emotional, but what gave the song life is how the piano was included in a few parts.
4. Terror Vixen
Terror Vixen is actually the shortest track off the album, and yet EXO-CHIKA is also singing but with some guy singing like opera. It’s a pretty dark song that sounds perfect in a Mortal Kombat film. I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be longer, but I was like (Damn…this ended too soon).
5. Hana no Sakigake
Hana no Sakigake takes thing at a slower pace, sadly the song sounds messy and doesn’t quite match up to itself much. I mean there’s the heavy beat and the erratic piano chords mixed with EXO-CHIKA’s unstable vocals. For being a ballad of sorts, this was pretty terrible.
6. THE REPOMAN
Luckily, THE REPOMAN fixes everything. It brought the dance fever back and included another movie theme in the song. EXO-CHIKA’s hectic singing totally fit with the mood of the song and the musical arrangement is just amazing IMO. RAVEMAN totally pulled a great song out of his hat. Amazing track.
7. Preservative Woman
Preservative Woman has the most obvious Asian influence with all the Japanese strings and synth melodies. Sadly, it feels a little bit empty at the start because it was just the synths backing up the song and nothing else. This is also the first time I hear EXO-CHIKA under auto-tune which sounds pretty cool and yet too obvious for the song. Iono, I just didn’t connect to it.
8. Crimson Tyrant
Crimson Tyrant is possibly the most demonic song of the album. The creepy voice scares the shit outta me. Then a beat comes in and the voice kinda just goes with it for a while. Then this heavily vocodered and robotic voice just pops in, and then becomes something else. Strange and long instrumental, but really creepy.
9. S.O.B
Our sort of next interlude begins with a creepy orgel melody. As time goes by, synths and a pipe organ come in with EXO-CHIKA singing in her cold tone again. It’s weird because the music is like all jungle-like and interesting. For being so short, this was a nice new sound to the album that I liked.
10. Disco King
The heavy darkwave makes a reappearance here and once again shows a great overall sound. I’ve actually grown fond of EXO-CHIKA here because she’s actually showing some emotion, but she’s covered up by the vocoder. Pretty sad revelation right? In some farfetched way, this does sound like a disco song. Sweet.
11. Banburo Koubou
I love the drum opening into this trance track of theirs. Some of it sounds really amazing, but once again the music just overrides the vocals a bit too much. There’s just so much activity here and it might be too hectic for some people, but I actually quite like it. Though the break in the song was just terrible…
12. Murealism
Murealism is probably the fastest song on the album. Add on the darker synths and the cool male voice was an interesting addition and sounded pretty cool by my standards. It might come as weird, that there’s a rapper in a darkwave track, but it actually worked this time around. EXO-CHIKA continues to be overwhelmed by the volume of the music…sad huh?
13. PNFPN
Why is the final track the oddest of the album? PNFPN is totally different with it’s happy synth sound. It’s like so upbeat and cheery that it’s quite strange. I do love the fact I can hear EXO-CHIKA sing finally and she sounds a bit happy as well…this is just a random track amongst the darker tracks on the album. It’s good, but definitly a WTF track. Though…as I get into the track…it just goes everywhere and skips and then “opening” somehow reappears out of random and it’s like weird and messy and such…and it ends with the guy repeating ~oto~ and then pouring a drink…the end
Tracks Recommended
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THE REPOMAN
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Vampire Ecstasy
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Murealism
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Terror Vixen
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PNFPN
Aural Vampire’s debut album is definitly for the hardcore trance fans out there. All of the songs were danceable, except “Hana no Sakigake” and brought the darker side of trance in an awesome way. In some songs I wish they didn’t hide EXO-CHIKA behind the music, but the songs she did stand out from were amazing with her chilly vocals. Still a great album nonetheless.
