Wampire – Bazaar

Nine Songs Feels Long

Eric Phipps felt he was becoming a “Kafka-esque insomniac music novelist” while developing Bazaar, too bad that the resulting album never metamorphoses into such absurd fictions. The statement comes off as hyperbolized, but Phipps’ language highlights the type of narrative that Wampire has chosen to weave.  The band only practices what they preach in short spurts on Bazaar, a record that is more realistically characterized as slick and straightforward. The truth, that their psychedelia is mostly folkloric, might not be as grabby but there’s still plenty to enjoy here. So their strut doesn’t talk their talk and Bazaar won’t transform you into one of Kafka’s giant insects, but it sure is a fun record.

It was just the two Portlandians, Eric Phipps and Rocky Tinder, that established Wampire as a playful psych-synth duo with Curiosity, but this sophomore effort boasts bigger numbers and smaller risks. The newly expanded five-piece sounding more realized and polished, but these advancements also strip some of the carefree spontaneity from their sound. The album leads off with maniacal laughter but this eccentricity is not only brief, it’s also rare. It’s almost a misdirection, and what follows is a fairly straightforward cabaret rock song. It only takes about three songs to realize this album is a fairly mixed bag of uppers and downers. Moments like the punk-surf of “Bad Attitude” and the riley outro on “Sudden Fly” are nothing if not badass, but the album also has peevish qualities (saxophone, I’m looking at you). It’s too bad too, because it cheeses up otherwise strong songs, re: “Wizard Staff,” “Fly on a Wall” and “Too Stoned”.

Even though their psilocybin-soaked narrative leaves some experimentation to be desired, the inconsistency of their sound comes off as ambitious and these many jolts make a nine-song record feel long. Wampire come off as more serious than on their last go around, which is strange to say of a record that exuberates such a lively youthfulness. Bazaar will turn some old fans into curmudgeons because the dynamics of their loose garage duo have been superseded by a pristine studio polish. Wampire are onto something bigger and tighter and that’s the real metamorphosis here. Funny, that the turn is toward the median.