06 Vampire On Titus

   

Introduction

When I made my first post to the GBV Facebook group regarding my 'conversion' to the cause (members can see it here), I included a link to a song from this album ('Have so many favourites already, but here's just one'). Amongst the very positive and welcoming comments - and from some other posts I've seen - I picked up a sense that Vampire On Titus might be considered by some to be a little underappreciated, and by others to be a rather 'difficult' album. And so I'm interested to see what the reaction might be to my (spoiler alert!) positive appraisal.

The Album

Depths of murky turmoil

When talking about Propeller, I made the observation that - whilst it's not exactly polished in terms of production - it didn't feel as though the lo-fi aesthetic was the most significant aspect of the album's identity; something that seemed to be at least partly the case with its two predecessors. Vampire On Titus, however, tacks back dramatically to an unrelentingly, often startling, primitive asperity.

Sinewy, overloaded guitars buzz and thrash, often so far forward in the mix to be almost uncomfortable; the bass rumbles nebulously; the percussion is often little more than a hazy background pulse. In many cases, the vocals are swathed in so much reverb and distortion that (a little like Mark E Smith's contributions to the last few Fall albums) they offer more in the way of ambient texture rather than any clarity of expression. Where they differ from late-era Fall, however, is that from that echoey morass emerge many melodies of austere beauty.

'Sot' (the song I included in that debut Facebook post, and for my money the best song on the album) is a case in point. Driven by a ragged reinterpretation of the guitar line on REM's 'Green Grow The Rushes', its stately grandeur comes from the yearning melody that passionately fights for air from the depths of murky turmoil that surround it.

Similarly, '"Wished I Was A Giant"' features an ardent, uplifting vocal almost entirely buried beneath slashing, churning chords. 'Dusted' is a thunderous grind married to a pensive, muffled croon. 'Expecting Brainchild' is cut from the same cloth, alternating between distorted staccato blasts and spidery garage-punk riffing. 'Unstable Journey' is a slower-paced, almost malevolent take on the same theme; 'Perhaps Now The Vultures' represents a more sprightly and urgent variant; 'What About It?' approaches the same formula from a more sparse and fragile angle.

A bug in her blouse

The album does have its quieter, prettier moments. 'Wondering Boy Poet' is a lovely little snippet of campfire-acoustic whimsy. 'Jar Of Cardinals' channels Life's A Riot-era Billy Bragg with a delicate, plaintively romantic touch. Even more effectively, 'Gleemer (The Deeds Of Fertile Jim)' demonstrates what can be achieved with bare, simply strummed chords if you have an impossibly captivating melody to go with them.

'#2 In The Model Home Series' is another that is less full-on abrasive than much of the LP, although rather than charming melancholy it goes for coiled menace. The air of malevolence is reinforced by the dystopian sci-fi Ray Bradbury / Philip K Dick style lyric (My automated spouse / has a bug in her blouse... and secretly she sees'). Album closer 'Non-Absorbing' is also less intense than many of the other tracks, and has a relatively poppy hook, although this is inevtiably eventually swamped by a familar guitar grind.

As I clearly should have started doing earlier...

For me, Vampire On Titus was significant stage in my GBV journey. Not because of its determinedly lo-fi approach (I am, after all, someone who spent hours of my life listening to The Fall - including a multitude of badly-recorded bootlegs - in preperation for my book), but in relation to the prevalence of sub-90 seconds tracks of the fragmentary variety. 

When I was going through my various 'big-playlist-on-shuffle' phases (see the introduction), one of the factors that deterred me was the sheer volume of songs that popped up, sounded at least vaguely interesting, but then faded away with frustrating abruptness. Taken out of context, these tracks seem unfinished, almost wilfully tossed off without care. But when you listen to GBV albums in their entirety (as I clearly should have started doing earlier) they make so much more sense. 

Here, in this category, we have nervously wavering mini-ballad 'Donkey School', miniature protest song 'Marchers In Orange' (a glimpse of what Ivor Cutler might have sounded like had he grown up in Ohio), 'World Of Fun' (Oasis do an unusually interesting impromptu slot at the local folk club), 'E-5' (a grainy smear of discordant arpeggios and off-hand, dreamy lamentation) and 'Superior Sector Janitor X' (a minute's worth of warped folk-drone). 'Cool Off Kid Kilowatt', although possibly the least essential track, is still an intriguing 56 seconds of sprawling raggedness, with what sounds like one of The Clangers hooting in the background.

The point is, these tracks really work in context as part of the album's ebb and flow. 'World Of Fun', for example, sits perfectly between 'Sot' and 'Cardinals': a well-judged jagged little fragement between the abrasive blast of the former and the scampering romanticism of the latter. 

Reprogram that static jive

I've only mentioned the lyrics in one song so far. This is partly because the 'echoey morass' of the tracks I covered in the first section above makes it a challenge to actually make them out (I was much more reliant on lyrics sites than was the case with previous LPs). 

There certainly aren't any straightforward 'baby I love you' moments, although a few songs do seem to touch on the nature of relationships: 'Sot' (I stepped into a place / a living space of total grace... and there's nothing I'd rather do / than be here right now'; 'Unstable Journey' ('Kiss me while I still speak / hold me as I'm too weak'); 'Jar Of Cardinals' ('She was high and I was low / sitting in our bungalow / eating something wonderful / never ever getting full'). The darkly dystopian tone of '#2 In The Model Home Series' is echoed in 'Marchers In Orange' ('Tracers for the facers of the aftermath'), 'Expecting Brainchild' ('Incinerator in a blood red sky...') and 'Dusted' ('Comes the sign of wasted times, I will wait no more / ever trudging through the aimless forests we explore').

With many songs, however (especially in the second half of the album) the messages are impenetrable - although this opacity does result in several intriguingly arresting turns of phrase: 'The curse is working / the trail of bodies / that leaves no suspects / what did you expect?' ('Perhaps Now the Vultures'); 'Ain't no doubt it takes practice / to reprogram that static jive / and fly away like Grandfather Five' ('What About It?).

In Conclusion...

I said in my post about Propeller that one the strengths of that album was that it was 'all about the songs,' by which I meant that the lo-fi aspect itself - whilst still notable - didn't feel like it was the primary objective of the LP. Here, the lo-fi nature of the sound is definitely, inescapably prevalent, but it doesn't actually feel like a retrogressive step. Having proved with Propeller that they could create an album rich in texture and melody, Vampire feels like a deliberate sideways (but not backwards) excursion into more challenging territory, but one that's more balanced and coherent than either Aerial or Fly. And like Propeller, the sequencing is impeccable: a key strength of the album.

It's undoubtedly more abrasive and difficult than any of the other albums thus far. (When exposing my nearest and dearest to GBV's work, for example on car journeys, I'm far more likely to plump for something like Mag Earwhig! or Isolation Drills.) I wouldn't - with my admittedly limited experience - recommend it as a starting point for anyone new to the band's work. More than any of the others I've covered so far, it took sustained listening to 'click' - but getting to that point was hugely rewarding.

Added to the 'GBV Favourites' playlist: 

More than half make it onto the compilation:

• "Wished I Was A Giant"
• Expecting Brainchild
• Donkey School
• Dusted
• Marchers In Orange
• Sot
• Jar Of Cardinals
• Unstable Journey
• Gleemer (The Deeds Of Fertile Jim)
• What About It?

Album rank:

1. 8.7 Propeller

2. 7.9 Vampire On Titus 

3. 7.6 Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia 

4. 7.1 Same Place The Fly Got Smashed

5. 7.0 Sandbox 

6. 6.6 Devil Between My Toes 

Other News

• There's been a bit of a larger gap between this post and the last than has been the case so far: partly because of work/family commitments; I've also been busy with my blogs about The Wedding Present and Dinosaur Jr. I go on nearly five weeks of annual leave shortly, so I hope to pick up the pace a little.
• No new t-shirts to report, although I doubt it'll be too long before there are more...

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