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booptunes · 2 years

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Fearless Vampire Killers - Something Terminal/Delicate. Review.

December 2021, The Black Heart, a Camden music venue, announces a show for ‘After the Flames’. Who? There’s no sign of any music released by them. How have they got a headline spot at a respectable venue? But something seems familiar in the artwork on the poster? Could it be? It is.

It’s the return of Fearless Vampire Killers.

The best band you’ve never heard of! Fearless Vampire Killers (FVK) was one of the foremost “new grave” bands, a gothic punk subgenre that Kerrang! Magazine created. After teasing this show, FVK fans quickly caught on.

Noticing the iconic FVK fang logo cleverly hidden in the poster for the After the Flames show. The art style that was clearly that of guitarist’s Shane Sumner, who would design the artwork for their albums and merchandise. Fans were quick to snatch up tickets, and then on March 11th, 2022, FVK took to the stage for the first time in six years.

But now Fearless Vampire Killers (FVK) are back with their first musical release in six years! A double A-side single ‘Something Terminal’ - which includes the title track Something Terminal and Delicate. The songs are released on digital platforms such as Spotify as well as a classic cassette. The two tracks keep the classic themes of FVK’s music – reaping, flames and loss, which could possibly be linking on to their last concept album ‘Unbreakable Hearts’.

Fearless Vampire Killers are an alternative rock band, made up of Co-frontmen Laurence Beveridge and Kier Kemp, Shane Sumner on guitar, Drew Woolnough on bass guitar and Luke Illingworth on drums. Not a band known by everyone, but the people who like them, love them. The band engages with fans in so many ways and spending time talking after shows, writing books based off their lyrics in a dystopian town ‘Grandomina’. They even created their own form of social media called Obsidian Bond, which can no longer be found. They originally formed in 2008 but broke up in 2016 – returning on March 11th, 2022, with a secret show called “After the Flames” - a potential reference to their debut single ‘Palace in Flames’ and a chapter in their ‘Militia of the Lost’ book titled ‘Before the Flames’.

The title track ‘Something Terminal’ is almost nine minutes in length, the first couple of minutes in the song are soft and give a feeling of reflection, the only instruments you can hear are an acoustic then going to an electric, with simplistic percussion to back it up. After this, the bass comes in along with more of an electric sound all together, a quicker tempo and more hopeful feel until the fourth minute, where there’s a heavier breakdown before returning to the softer feeling at the beginning of the song, although the instrumentation here is just a piano – almost feeling like it could be a different song all together until it goes back to the chorus. I find it evident of the boys’ influence by bands such as Green Day and My Chemical Romance.

Delicate goes straight into the heavy sound that FVK are known for – messy verses with some clarity when it comes to the chorus. Laurence once said that they don’t want to sound perfect. They want truth in their lyrics, which is apparent in Delicate. The integrity towards writing music with meaning is something I’ve always admired with FVK. The lyrics talk about giving up on dreams, letting them go – which can be linked to the band’s split. You could say this song is a perfect response to one of their farewell songs, Priceless. A song seemingly about being corrupted by an offer, giving up something that is supposed to mean a lot to you.

Both tracks have the classic FVK theatrics and pays homage to their other concept albums, but clearly reflects the boys’ feelings towards their breakup. Something Terminal in particular references a potential disagreement within the band which caused a drift, then talks about them coming back together. FVK lyrics are usually gothic, containing themes of war. It'd be easy to say it’s a metaphor for the battle you’d face with mental health or higher authority. As it says in the lyrics for Something Terminal - ‘a symbiotic antidote for all our hurt’.

Although the music won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, the music is perfect for fans of FVK – which, no doubt, is what they were aiming for. It's available in a range of bundles on their official website.

#FVK #Fearless Vampire Killers #music journalism #Music review #music #new music #journalism #something terminal #delicate #drew woolnough #kier kemp #laurence beveridge #shane sumner #luke illingworth

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