“Bazaar” is a fitting title for this latest Wampire album. Each track has a distinctly different sound as if they were items being sold at market and Wampire are the merchants showing us different sounds, trying to get us to buy, and while compared to each other these songs sound different outside the context of this album these songs are relatively dull. The album’s first half is upbeat and spooky but only in the campy sense of the word with lead single, “Wizard Staff” being the highlight. The album transitions with “Too Stoned” slowing down the pace of the songs and losing many of the acoustic drums in favor of electronic ones. The vocals and instruments on this album are washed out and hazy, and while Wampire seems to be aiming for dreamy and psychedelic they come across as lifeless. Even though “Bazaar” has plenty of sonic shifts the album over all manages to sound uninteresting and stale and the constant changes come across as incohesive rather than dynamic. With the exception of the song “Millennials” nothing on this album is offensively bad but neither is it ear catching and as a result it could sit well as the inoffensive soundtrack at a Halloween party unfortunately it would likely sit on the shelf for the other 364 days a year.
by Charles Pfaff
4/10
