Thank god for Shadow Kingdom, man. Those guys get some major eternal hailz from our end for reissuing this slab of weird heavy metal genius and introducing me to the glory of Energy Vampires. Seriously, this record knocked me flat on my ass, a response that I doubted I would ever experience again after hearing an obscure 80's metal reissue. Most of the old school metal being reissued by smaller labels is being brought back for a hungry but very small cult audience that just can't get enough metal from this era, but very few of these obscurities ever hold any realm surprises. I started to hear some cool stuff about this band called Energy Vampires a few months ago though, and when I finally found a supplier here in the U.S. that had copies of the reissued double LP from Energy Vampires, I picked up a bunch on a whim due to a) the freaking awesome album cover artwork that depicts a group of rat-faced nosferatu cowering at the feet of a fierce-looking Barnabas Collins-esque vampire, courtesy of Dimitar Nikolov, and b) my discovery that Energy Vampires was also connected to the band Slauter Xstroyes. Now, I have to admit that I haven't really heard much from Slauter Xstroyes, just a song or two actually. Yes, I know they rule, and that I need to get their albums pronto. I'm working on it. But this Energy Vampires reissue just kind of jumped out at me when I saw it, but I was still in no way prepared for the sheer metal AWESOMENESS that this record possesses.

Energy Vampires formed sometime around 1989 around singer John Stewart, who had previously sang in that cult Chicago-area metal band Slauter Xstroyes, and this album is the sole recorded output from Energy Vampires, only released on cassette in a run of 500 copies sometime around 1990. One of heavy metal's best kept secrets, Stewart had an unbelievable voice that actually rivaled the skull-splitting falsetto of Rob Halford or King Diamond, capable of going from a killer emotive growl to a hair raising scream that forcibly elicits a raising of the horns every fucking time I listen to this record. It boggles my mind that Stewart never became more well known outside of the heavy metal underground in the late 1980's/early 1990's and that I had never heard of the guy until recently, his voice is that amazing. With Energy Vampires, Stewart continued to mine the idiosyncratic power metal of his former band with the help of more than twenty musicians who he enlisted to help him record; the lineup listed in the sleeve notes is massive, and intriguing as well when you see guys like "Jim Jenson" credited with playing "jackhammer". Hmm. And Energy Vampires really is a hard band to pin down. You could call this power metal, but it's completely different from any 80's power metal I've ever heard. Far weirder and more ambitious, that's for sure. The album opens up with a creepy haunted-house church organ into, and rips right into "Packin A Pistol", as shredding a metal anthem as you could imagine, galloping drums and instantly catchy riffs and unbelieveable operatic screams, like King Diamond fronting some seriously skeezy, thrashy L.A. sleaze metal, then kicks into "Blood Money", and here's where the quirkiness of Energy Vampires really starts to show. The verse riff is so catchy and anthemic it borders on pop, but the song itself is arranged weirdly, the catchy hook thrust into an angular arrangement that's kind of hard to get your head around the first few times you hear it, like a super poppy 80's metal anthem chopped up and put back together into this weird prog-like structure, but still catchy as fuck in spite of the oddball songwriting. "Pull The Stake Out" speeds things up even more, a fast paced thrasher with gnashing Motorhead-style riffing that at first seems like it's going to sound like more straightforward metal, but yep, a minute or two in, the verse takes a hard left turn - BLAM! - into a jarring atmospheric part that almost sounds like a completely different, as if the band spliced together sections of tape from two different songs, but somehow it all works, it all comes together into this strange convoluted form of power metal. The next song "ROck N Roll" brings in pop piano and one of the catchiest tunes on the whole album, and again the song is put together all weirdly, trash metal riffage glommed onto a totally glammy pop hook and awesome piano melodies and slamming to an abrupt stop at the end. Whew!

The rest of the album is equally weird and quirky and catchy as fuck; in a saner world, songs like "Rock N Roll" and "My Eyes" would have been all over rock radio in 1990. "Battle Axe" delivers another pounding anthem of galloping metal; "Different From The Rest" unleashes some of Stewart's most nut-shattering screams alongside awesome thrash metal with some unexpected twists and turns; "Laboratory Door" is a minute of manipulated vocal noises; and "Footsteps In The Snow" ends the second side with an epic, slower moving glam-prog jam a la Queensryche being stitched together with Motley Crue, complete with pipe organs, then halfway through is violently punctured with shrill saxophone shrieks that sound like Zorn's playing in Painkiller before kicking in to some awesome soulful blowing. FUCK! That jackhammer shows up in "Shock Treatment", and "Broken Winged Angel" is a brief spoken word piece with deep processed vocals speaking over choirs of angelic synthesizers, and "My Eyes" is an amazing piano ballad that manages to avoid cheesiness while belting out a beautiful tune with just Stewart singing over a moving piano melody.

This album is so amazing and creative and unlike any other metal album from the era that I can think of. You'd never know it from the song titles - titles like "Mother Fucker", "Shock Treatment", "On The Run", and "Packin A Pistol" hardly suggest that the music is anywhere as progressive as it is, and sound like your typical 80's metal fare. Which is why Energy Vampires were so genius; this really does sound like 80's metal, the greatest 80's metal that you've never heard, totally sounding of it's time but at the same time, sounding quite alien, like an 80's metal band from a bizarro Earth where it makes perfect sense to combine theatrical art-rock, thrash metal, sleazoid glam, and 80's power metal all together into infectious pop-metal anthems that are packed with TONS of confounding tempo changes and riffs. And of course the vocals are a big part of why Energy Vampires sound so distinctive, evoking a strange mix of Judas Priest and early Queensryche and 70's progressive rock and Mercyful Fate. Obviously this is pretty crucial for fans of Stewart's previous band Slauter Xstroyes, and two of the songs on this album are actually old Slauter Xstroyes songs that were re-recorded for Energy Vampires; but anyone that is into 80's metal and wants to hear something completely unique needs to hear this album, and fast.

The record comes with an insert that has a lengthy, in-depth reprint of an interview with Stewart that goes into alot of detail about Energy Vampires and his musical vision. Highly recommended!