Track Of The Day VAMPIRE VALENTINE
Vampire Valentine is a Newcastle upon Tyne, UK-based newcomer band, formed in 2025 by singer/producer Michael Longstaff & bassist Kieron Wright with help from US-based cyberpunk producer Ricky Conover, aka Forerunnerx.
The group have just dropped their debut single “Porcelain”, the first excerpt from their upcoming EP “Excellent Debut”.
The band treads seamlessly between Post-Punk and Dark Wave, favouring sober atmospheric moods, profound intensity and agonized introspection, rather than aggressiveness, cloaked in a reverb-drenched shadowy aura, coruscated by romantic and forlorn melodies brimming with dark drama.
“Porcelain” compels hypnotic drums and murky bass lines to pulse unrelentingly like a strained heartbeat, layered with sharp, poignant guitar wails laced with restrained, bristly chugging guitar riffs, and desolate, shivering synths, slowly spiraling hopelessly around sad haunted male vocals, surrounded by the wicked whispers of a dress wearing devil in disguise, suffering under the pain of temptation.
The urgent and ghostly “Olivia”, on the flip, is a gothic love song embodied by gentle, wistful male vocals, churned by rushed clicking rhythms, ominously droning low ends, and epic, dramatic soaring synth strains, to give adoration and devotion to an eternal love that survives death.
A majestic, lashing and hard-hitting beat-driven remix, topped by glaring melancholic synth swirls, from Forerunnerx, provides a club-ready nuance to the whole EP.
