Eoin Mac Ionmhain@bluesky.social
This was a very welcome revisit for me, having covered it briefly a while back. I love this recording. It reminds me of early 70s folk horror and unsettling movies where you were never quite sure what was going on. Especially a very curious 11-year-old. On first listen, I was taken aback by the poetic use of the language of the book. Rather than tell the whole story, this album imbues the feeling of the book. It takes the eerie vibe and creates wonderfully thought-out sonic landscapes. Even when it takes on a more linear songwriting style. With that process, it reminds me of The Pretty Things’ concept album, “S.F Sorrow”, it has that imprint.
When I was younger, possibly the first year of high school, I was mooching around Bolton library. As a school refuse this was a place where I spent a lot of my time. Anyway, on one visit, I came upon the audio section, a room filled with vinyl and cassettes with what seemed like all the music in the world. And you could borrow it for a fee! Imagine that 11-year-old me was beside himself. Anyway, I digress and could go on, but this album reminds me of that room because it was there that I did a lot of my musical research. You could take 3 items at once, I think, so I would just pick stuff out at random. I found weird and wonderful stuff, folk, soundtracks to films I was yet to see, prog rock(not a fan, at that point), early electronica, krautrock, classical, etc. I ate it all up. Spat a lot out too.
What I love about this album is that it takes the assignment and goes with it. It does what the music wants it to do. The use of sound design, traditional songwriting, drones, and organic instruments gives it such a human feel. It has a real cinematic scope, a vision and it really does hit the mark. Also like those soundtrack albums I mentioned earlier, you don’t need to know the story. You don’t even need to know a synopsis because, as a piece of music, this really does stand up on its own
If you love soundtracks and love folk horror, and love concept albums, you should have this in your collection.
While this album is, obviously, inspired by the Richard Matheson novel, it does a lot more than express that particular story in musical terms. It digs deep into every vein that tends to run through any good example of vampire fiction and floods the listener’s mind with the essence of it.
And it does so with such intensity, such panic at times, such heaviness and such dread, while still managing to convey a sense of the world that is being mourned once everything has gone strange and horrible around the protagonist. It distills vampire horror into an emotional experience.
That’s a feeling that’s hard to find if one happens to be a lifelong, jaded consumer of vampire-related media. I’ve been fascinated by vampire fiction since I was 5, but it’s been a very long time since I was actually scared by it, disturbed on a primal level!When I was a kid, my grandmother told me stories about vampires and my imagination went wild. My squeamish mother forbid me from watching Hammer movies, so I imagined worse things than such films actually contain. The ideas scared me more than the portrayals of them.In all the years between then and now, I’ve watched probably hundreds of vampire movies, read many vampire novels, stories, comics. And while I’ve enjoyed many of them, they rarely ever hit me THERE, where the intensity of the idea digs in and shakes the soul. With this album, that happened!And I could go on about this all day, but I’ll stop now and say 2 last things.1. @calicojak.bsky.social, thank you! I’ve been looking for this album since about 40 years before you made it.2. Everyone else, check out this album….if you dare!
There is a sense of uncertainty and mystery present in the entire album, without even the slimmest glimmers of peace and safety, but just a hint of settling into a “new normal”, regardless of how gruesome and terrifying this normality really is. Defining the general style of this album is not easy; there are songs that would fit in the Americana genre, then there are droning instrumental pieces that emulate the style of movie soundtracks from the 1950s and ‘60s. In fact, a drone of some kind is present in even the more conventional tracks, further enforcing the sensation of tension.
Probably my favorite “trick” to enhance the atmosphere is on display in the song “One Missed Winding”, where the sounds of a wet mouth are mixed into the vocal performance. I thought the instrumentation throughout was excellent, with Eoin providing beautiful, expressive vocals. An instrument I have to mention specifically are the drums. In the songs that use them, they are enormously well played, doing more than serving as the rhythmic guideline but adding even more expression through some inspired cymbal work.
Overall, I think this is a fantastic album that I can wholeheartedly recommend. The individual songs are pleasant and entertaining to listen to, while the entire piece tells a cohesive story. The storytelling and atmosphere are it’s biggest selling points, but that should not take anything away from the creativity and musicianship on display here.
Florian
Please note: this is a free download. If you choose to give more, it is a donation to the musicians involved in creating this work that will help them make more art and music. Any donation is welcome but please feel under no obligation to do so. At least 50% of any donation you make will be passed on to charities working on addiction and homelessness in Ireland, such as Ana Liffey Drug Project (www.aldp.ie) and Merchants Quay (mqi.ie).
Please consider visiting the websites of these organisations and making a donation directly to them in any case.
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