Playlouder - Music is the Network

Had I the finances and the faculties I’d like nothing more than to venture into whatever dank corner of Italia the Lord is currently skulking in but the climate being what it is and the credit crunch squeezing our collective nuts as much as it is, I thought I’d best pontificate upon the above subject from the safety of my swivelling office chair.

In 2004 Lord Vampyr was "kicked out" of Theatres Des vampires – the band he started a decade earlier. This is the accepted term - this is what is reported by all available sources. He was the only remaining original member. 

The band continued without him and have produced two albums since his departure – the dull ‘Pleasure and Pain’ and this year’s more polished ‘Anima Noir’, both being decidedly poppier and more mainstream in sound than any work produced under Lord Vampyr’s reign.

His name is no longer listed on the band’s website biography, and his influence – aside from the continuing lyrical theme of vampirism and indeed the band name – is gone from Theatres Des Vampires. What remains is a Euro-goth rock act of minimal import on the global scene. Even the Wikipedia page dedicated to the band has conspicuously few references to the man who was for so long the mainstay of the group.

But what of the lord? How does a lord vampire (Vampyr, whatever, same difference) cope with being deposed by his own clan? Sonya Scarlet, the backing singer who replaced him, is now casually referred to as Countess Sonya, and leads the band from the front while Fabian and the others compose the songs with her co-direction.

Lord Vampyr being ousted from the band is akin to Dani being kicked out of Cradle of Filth, Axl being politely asked to exit Guns ‘n’ Roses by the back door, Mick Hucknall being stabbed in the back while performing on stage with Simply Red! :-)

Still, Lord Vampyr, also known as Alessandro Nunziati, had been active for a good few years previous to TDV with respected underground act Sepolcrum. And the ‘Theatres seems to have been established primarily as an outlet for an obsession with vampirism , rather than any coherent musical ideology. That the band’s Lord Vampyr-era albums danced between the symphonic, the operatic, darkwave, death rock, goth rock, extrme, black and gothic metal should be taken as a credit to Lord Vampyr’s creative vision, and the talents of the myriad musicians with whom he surrounded himself during his tenure as the ‘Lord’ of the troupe.

Despite the patchiness and oft-mediocre production quality of the output, the sheer versatility and experimentalism is up there with Arcturus, Solefald, even the Meads of Asphodel.

If indeed Lord Vampyr got the boot in so ignominious a manner, as is the word on the world wide web, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing? Maybe the strength of the existing forces in the band – the competence in his comrades’ song-writing skills – was endangering his creative vision and his status as the master of puppets? If so, it’s certainly for the best that he moved on, because the talents of the remaining Vampires are no match for his own. Since leaving TDV, in the time they have released two mid-range albums, Lord Vampyr, continuing with the name on the underground circuit, has produced the following releases, with various accomplices, and under various titles:

2005
* Lord Vampyr - De Vampyrica Philsophia
* Cain - Dioscuri Aurea Saecula

2006
* Shadowsreign - Blood City

2007
* Cain – Triumvira

2008
* Lord Vampyr - Carpathian Tragedies (imminent)

Cain’s work has evolved into searing mid-paced black metal, which shows his vocals in finer-fettle than on any previous Theatres Des Vampires release. It’s as good as anything coming out of Norway at the moment. Shadowsreign is an amalgam of gothic thrash/death metal with a fuller band sound, and Lord Vampyr, the work with which he blesses his TDV title, is – judging by demos available – closer to the TDV of old, with dual vocals, spoken and screamed, and theatrical, experimental, black/symphonic goth metal like nobody else can envision, let alone execute.

With this many irons in the fire, it’s just possible that the best could be yet to come from this Italian metal maverick.