Magnolia Park have gone full Coheed and Cambria – a sentence which has probably never been written before, and no one ever expected to be written. Rather than stick to their skate punk roots or dip their toes back into the world of nu-metal, they’ve decided to write an album about robot vampires. No, really. The half-cyborg protagonist immortalised on the cover art, Aurora X1, seeks to free her cyberpunk world from the grip of a cult via a ritual that transforms her and her followers into vampires according to the first two chapters of her story shared online. Thankfully, much like Coheed, the world-building and narrative in ‘Vamp’ are implicit rather than full musical theatre. This is still a record that can be enjoyed without knowing anything about robots or vampires. Now we know where Josh Roberts and co were planning on heading with their sound, we can look back on their last album, 2023’s ‘Halloween Mixtape II’ as a turning point; the skatepark, Blink 182 whimsy which characterised the start of their career was already being pushed aside in favour of more darkness and a heavier slant. Magnolia Park are calling ‘Vamp’ a ‘neo-gothic’ record, and while we can see a lot more heavy darkness than you’d expect, there isn’t much ‘goth’ as we’d know it. Rather, in spite of all the blurb and baggage, we might just have Magnolia Park’s first entirely serious record.
Sure, the band are hiding behind the protective screen of writing in character, but they must be still taking inspiration from their personal emotional responses, the relatable kernel of Magnolia Park which makes them so appealing. The pain they’ve held inside is ready to be let out, and anyone who stands in their way had better duck or run. Take early drop ‘Cult’: we’ve got Roberts’ melodic vocals and rebellious sentiments building to a crescendo until it all shatters into a guttural roar backed with guitar buildups like an itchy trigger finger. They’ve been pushed as far as they can take, and ‘The Screams’ are the result, a song with a decidedly post-modern Linkin Park flavour. Ignoring the story for a second, which doesn’t really feature directly on the album at all, this is a record which still drags in so much of the Magnolia Park sound that we’ve already grown to love. We’ve got the hip-hop tinged beats, Roberts’ transcendent wail and melodic vocals that soars above the undergrowth and a sense of being intentional in everything they touch. Yes, the lighter hearted or political tracks are sorely missed, but the undercurrent of frustration which stretches across everything that Magnolia Park have produced is still present. It feels like, even through they’re technically writing in character as avenging cyborgs, they’ve stepped up to make a very ambitious record that takes their sound to a new place.
The closing track, ‘Ophelia’, is incredibly different even from the rest of ‘Vamp’, and serves of a harbinger of more change to come. Slow, post-punk meditations on mortality, rich in gorgeous echoes and thoughtful ripples, were not on anyone’s bingo card for a new Magnolia Park album. However, if this is where they’re planning on taking the rest of their new saga, it bodes well for a mature stance that displays a contemplative side to the band we haven’t seen before. A long and lovely swan song, it’s probably the closest Magnolia Park come to hitting their ‘neo-gothic’ ambitions.
Even after many listens to ‘Vamp’, the question remains: why would a political punk band suddenly take a turn into fantasy? It feels like they’re flirting with expressing their own rage at a controlling political force which they can’t influence, and it’s no great stretch to imagine some of the lyrics directed towards certain social changes in the US which have taken place in between their last album and ‘Vamp’. If this is all just a giant metaphor, it’s a very well constructed one which doesn’t stand in the way of our enjoyment of a maturing band ready to take on the challenge of resisting sarcasm. Even if this is just an album about supernatural freedom fighters, it’s still woven together with enough verve to allow listeners to swim in a heavier outing from our favourite Florida punks.
KATE ALLVEY