Vlad In Tears Porpora: Album review

Review

Kat Srebro E.

      Calling all metal music lovers who don't want to choose between beautifully melodic and heavy darkness, Vlad in Tears has released the breath of air fans have been waiting to inhale. Porpora is a carefully thought out emotional rollercoaster, riding through a delicious mix of symphonic, almost cinematic feeling tracks like Hope and Let Me Be the One, right into their more nu metal side Right Now and One More Chance. Fans who grew up in the 90s will have Stabbing Westward, Korn, and NIN come to mind throughout the album.

      Porpora starts listeners off with a literal guttural scream of Wasted Lives, an energetic crunchy industrial metal track arriving to pour into the void so many found themselves in, and is the perfect high to start off. The album will also carry listeners off to the more darksynth direction with tracks like Down, Blood, and No Candles for the Ride that demonstrate the influences of those 90's metal heavyweights. For the romantics, Let Me Be the One will set you adrift onto an epic cloud of desire for connection after years of isolation and uncertainty about the future. Porpora offers no filler tracks, demonstrating meticulous choices in what needed to be part of the album's story born during a time of darkness, doubt, and death and then illuminating them with shining beams of hope for love, reconciliation, and action after dormancy. These themes can best be heard in the touching, instrumental heavy Be Safe Now, Right Now, and Hope that inspire us to get up and embrace what makes our lives worth more than just surviving through.

      The album closes with what might arguably be one of social media's most used and abused songs of 2022, Kate Bush's classic 1980s track Running Up That Hill. Luckily for those of us who seemed unable to escape from the song, Vlad in Tears blew the wheels off the bandwagon that carried the song back to popularity and drove the album off into the deep dark red sunset with a fresh metal take on the new wave classic. The 8th album from Vlad in Tears had been a long time coming for established fans but pays respects to the collective global introspective of mortality all fans, both new and vintage, have faced in the past two and a half years. Like a good book, Porpora leaves listeners re-listening and ready for the next chapter.

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Porpora is available on all music platforms.

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And how do you like Porpora, do you have a favorite song from this album?