From Madison, Wisconsin, we are presented with the latest work from VANISHING KIDS, the album is Miracle Of Death, their sixt release. The band started in the early 2000’s and have produced only 6 albums sporadically spreaded throughout the years. Their proposal is a dark, gloom, boarding to doom kind of metal. BLACK SABBATH is the first thing that comes to mind in terms of possible inspiration. Led by a female singer that also plays keys, and having in the band a violin and viola player, I do expect some well orchestrated heavy tunes.Let’s check it out.

The first song is “Spill The Dark” and you already notice the gloom from the first chords. The band mixes some well orchestrated parts with heavy guitars, slow pounding drums and a sweet, almost angelic voice. It blends the dark mood well with the sweetness of the vocal melodic parts. This tune is the only one in their album with a Youtube video. “Only You” comes next and starts with a nice rhythm cadence by drummer Nick Johnson that is followed by a good guitar riff that gives me SMASHING PUMPKINS vibes. The song emanates ethereal moods and has  somewhat psychedelic touches. The vocal parts are once again sweet, melodic and slow. 

 With a creepy organ introduction that reminded me of my last marriage ceremony, we also have the slow paced and dark “Demon Glove”. The band rely on long melodies with slow lyrics or no lyrics at all with a lot of uhs and ohs ans ahs as part of the melody. Nice guitar solo from Jason Hartman with keyboards in the background. The band can be very PINK FLOYDISH in their delivery. The mood is dark mixed with angelic tones like a sinister religious cult (aren’t them all?). The fourth tune “Midnight Child” starts with a killer riff that loses its energy with the sweetness of the melody. It seems that the energy of the riff and the softness of the vocals  do not match. Nikki Drohomyreky is a good singer but I believe her voice is too blended deep in the mix. It lacks a little extra punch. I do understand that the mood is supposed to be dark and angelical at the same time but the mood does not change much. You get the same feelings from beginning to end and the melody does not change much as well. We could use rome raspiness in the vocals and a change of tempo to invite us to other places.

 “Feral Angel” is another journey to whatever imaginary land you want. Very whimsical and slow paced, with fuzz all over the guitars, the songs offer a slight change of mood with a nice acoustic guitar and vocal innuendo in the middle. On the acoustic part you can hear the vocal a little more clear and reminds me of Shirley Ann Manson from GARBAGE. Solid but discreet work from Jerry Sofran on bass in every track. Heavy keyboards and soft vocals on “LKN”. The band escapes from rock completely on this one in my opinion. No guitars or bass or drums. Just keyboard moods. It matches the general concept of the album but it did not add much to my listening experience unfortunately.

 We end this short journey with “Dust”. And we are back to some distorted guitar and this one has a nice change of tempo and melody giving the tune a much needed energy break that I wished the other tunes in the album had. For me, this is the best of the bunch and it feels it offers more to the listener. All violin and viola parts hidden in the mix were perfectly performed by Gavin Epperson. They could so much think outside of the box with this violin and viola player. So much still to explore.The album has only seven songs, but they are long seven songs and the mood does not change much in each one of them. I would prefer if more variations could be explored within the style. The album is somewhat monotonous in some parts as the songs will usually have the same vibe and pace. There are so many things that you can do melodically with a slight change of tempo. Nevertheless, a good album that could be better.