Review Summary: Groovy death rapcore?
Vampire Mooose is indeed a very barbaric band. Made up of four musical misfits from St. Louis, MO. They have in a way created their own brand of music; they blend hardcore, death metal, and rap in a extremely groovy mound of heaviness. This may sound very unattractive to you, but believe it or not when intertwined well these elements can become very deadly. Armed with odd tempo changes and their blunt force aggressive sound, Vampire Mooose is a band that you will either love or hate. Prepare to go where not many metal bands go and emerge successful.
The vocals are the hardest thing to digest in this bands case. He has a very odd bark, there isn’t exactly much variation, but with his viscious snarl variation isn’t a huge factor, it remains very entertaining. The only clean vocals on the record are found in the “Gangsta rap” sections of the album, these sections may turn some off due to the fact that a lot of the time he is just rambling things like “Vampire Mooose mutha***a, turn this *** up” sometimes these moments can take away from the album, at other times though it works its way in very cohesively. Just reading about these rap influences may put off just about every metalhead reading, but when given the chance Vampire Mooose can do some serious damage.
The guitar tone is very thin and distorted, but in a way still very bludgeoning due to the consistent slamming grooves. The band makes little attempt to be technical; they just focus on creating good songs rather than showing off their musical abilities. The only thing that one could complain about the guitar work is that the album could’ve used at least a solo or two, but that’s just the elite metalhead in me complaining.
One of the things that I have always frowned apon in extreme metal is the lack of audible bass, Vampire Mooose on the otherhand does not have the problem the bass gets quite a bit of time in the spotlight in the album, in no way is the bass amp cranked to eleven but it’s nice to hear the bassist is actually being used. The guitar stays toward the deep end the maority of the album, catchy riffs make up for the lack of solo’s for the most part.
“Adamantium Elbow” is the most aggressive track on the album, it pummels you in everyway imaginable and never lets up, overall this is what the album as a whole does. Vampire Mooose have found a way to express their anger in such a pure form that many previous bands have attempted and failed, and for that they deserve at least a little respect within the metal community. Somehow this band has managed to remain under the radar, if they begin touring in more areas outside the midwest this band has extreme potential to blow up and rightfully so. Overall I give this a 4.5 out of 5; Vampire Mooose is a force to be reckoned with. I highly recommend this to anyone who can withstand a fair share of heaviness, you will not be dissapointed.
