Portland five-piece Wampire's debut, Curiosity, casts the familiar gold sounds of a bygone and misspent youth (1960s psychedelia, 70s soft rock, 80s new wave) as something foreign and, at times, a little unsettling. It's nostalgic, but with the reflection seen through a funhouse mirror. Like Ariel Pink, Foxygen, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra before them, Wampire's emergence seems to have benefitted from the trail blazed by MGMT’s Congratulations. Although the Brooklyn band’s second album may have been deemed a disappointment by major label standards, in retrospect, its glam-smeared, hyper-frazzled psych pop anticipated alt-rock’s subsequent turn towards the strange.
Recorded by UMO bassist Jacob Portrait, Curiosity doesn’t shy away from its retro allusions, from the bizarro-world Sears-family-portrait cover art to the dust-covered production, which approximates the fidelity of an overly over-dubbed cassette. Wampire first formed in 2007 as a beat-driven electronic project to soundtrack Portland house parties; that it’s taken the core members, Eric Phipps and Rocky Tinder, six years to issue a proper debut album hints at both the elastic, evolutionary qualities of their sound and a patient approach to organzing the album's seemingly random elements. While the surface haziness lends Curiosity a sloppy, off-the-cuff appearance, it’s very much by design.
Wampire’s attention to craft is immediately apparent in lead single “The Hearse”, which opens the album with a blissful blur of synth-powered dream-pop. Suddenly, they drop the beat and dissolve into an eerie organ drone that’s used as the foundation for the song’s heart-racing, motorik climax. But if “The Hearse” packs an impressive amount of drama and dynamic range into its four-and-a-half minutes, much of Curiosity finds Wampire a bit too comfortable and self-satisfied within their washed-out aesthetic, and the premeditated haziness of the recordings-- and obvious attempts to weird them up, through squeaky synth settings and effete vocal tics-- ultimately undermines the duo’s songwriting ambitions.
“Giants” is the busiest of all-- comprising a rumbling surf-punk riff, waves of wah-wah-ed guitars, haunted-house organs, a bop-along Beach Boys-via-Panda Bear melody, a melancholic mid-song breakdown-- but the metronomic rhythm and compressed dimensions sap the song of its delirious potential, plotting all the action on a straight line. And though the anxious energy underpinning Phipps’ and Tinder’s vocals is palpable throughout, whenever they get too close to opening up emotionally, they resort to affectation: The sad-eyed sentiments of “Outta Money” are communicated through a comically droopy warble, while Curiosity’s most resonant song, “Trains”, could practically pass for vintage Jackson Browne, if not for a self-consciously cheeky delivery that diminishes the romantic longing expressed within. Since their inauspicious, experimental beginnings, Wampire have obviously matured greatly as songwriters; now, they just need to channel that same confidence and daring into the execution.
