By Carissa Smith

Vampires Everywhere! have taken their music in a new direction with the release of their second album Hellbound and Heartless in June 2012. In an interview with Outburn magazine, vocalist Michael Vampire said their new sound is much closer to what he always envisioned the band would sound like.

The band has done away with the Auto-Tuned vocals from their first album Kiss the Sun Good-bye, resulting in a much more aggressive sound.

The lyrics to their new songs are darker than their older songs. An example of their older lyrics from the song “Kill the Chemicals” from Kiss the Sun Good-bye is “Your heart is breaking, will you scream out loud? Let’s kill the chemicals inside our heads. Fear is just a lie that lies within. Let’s kill the chemicals inside our heads. Fear is just a lie that leaves us dead.”

Some lyrics from “I Can’t Breathe” off Hellbound and Heartless are, “I tore my eyes out, I slit my wrists to breathe. Call me pathetic and torture me, ’cause in my mind I can’t breathe.” The lyrics of “Plastic,”  another song from Hellbound and Heartless, say, “I won’t be your Barbie doll, your fascist heroin. We’re the mass homicide, the anti-cool kids. Do you want to be hateful? Put your faith in the government. Do you want to be faithful? Paying God just to let you in.”

Vampires Everywhere! has a new line-up and with it they have really worked to create an album that is much more fitting to their vision of the band. They took their music in the direction they wanted to, unlike Kiss the Sun Good-bye, which was a result of the band being pulled in different directions by outside forces.

The band was not as rushed with Hellbound and Heartless, so they were able to put more work into it.

Hellbound and Heartless seems to be a better album than Kiss the Sun Good-bye. Vampire is clearly satisfied with it and has said fans can expect future music to be more like Hellbound and Heartless. Vampire hopes to touch peoples’ lives with the messages in future music.