Track Review - Vampire Empire

Big Thief Shine with Fan Favourite Vampire Empire

In March, Big Thief debuted a new song on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, little did they know the song would become a fan favourite and become one of the most anticipated unreleased songs they’ve ever made. 4 months later, the Brooklyn 4 piece finally release Vampire Empire, their first single since their Grammy Nominated Album Dragon New Warm Mountain, I Believe in You. With so much love and attention on a live demo, Vampire Empire was a confirmed hit for Big Thief, but with such high expectations, we must ask was the wait worth it?

I was Lucky Enough to see Big Thief in April, in which they played Vampire Empire

Spoiler Alert, the answer is Yes. Vampire Empire is one of Big Thief’s best singles. Despite being a pretty straightforward song, with the same two chords from start to finish and a consistent common-time beat, The instrumentation is the perfect amount of thickness with a recognisable guitar track with beefy drumming. All topped off by one of Adrianne Lenkers best vocal performances yet, a raspy angry delivery of some of her best lyrics for Big Thief. This is truly where the song shines the brightest, as with every Big Thief song the lyrics are the heart and soul of this track, and the lyrics on this track are sure to be cherished by Big Thief fans for many years to come. There are many small details that also help Vampire Empire flourish including a lovely piano section that comes in very faintly just as the pre chorus kicks in, its hard to make out at first but once you hear it for the first time its hard to miss.

It is hard to review this track without considering what it sounded like 4 months ago, as enough changes were made for some fans to be disappointed with the new version, most obviously seen with the removal of fan-favourite lyrics and the famous flute that fluttered on top of the intro and post-chorus. Although the removal of these details is sad and for the first few listenes its hard to get past the lack of flute and removal of the fan favoutite line "I'm the fish and she's my gills", it's hard to go back to the sonically inferior live version. Big Thief are known to make significant changes between their live and studio versions of songs, so those fans missing the old version may be able to see the original version played live throughout their range of summer dates in NA.

Vampire Empire will be accompanied by another song which is being pefromed on Big Theifs tour, Born For Loving You in October of this year and it is likely an album will follow. I can only hope that whatever BIg Thief release next is as quality as Vampire Empire, if so we could see one of the best Alternative Folk albums of this generation.