“American Vampire” — Reviewed

If you haven’t heard of Jyrki 69, it’s the stage name of a dude; Jyrki Linnankivi is or was lead vocalist for The 69 Eyes, a rock band from Finland, which although having a population of only slightly over five and a half million has produced a surprising number of rock bands, Nightwish being arguably the  best.

As you might suspect, American Vampire is in English, the lingua franca of the known Universe, as for the album itself…

Jyrki 69 has a particularly distinctive voice which obviously some people like, it is, how should we say, deep? It features thus on all ten tracks. According to his record label, the album consists of original songs and covers. Having said that, the covers are mostly so obscure that unless you are an aficionado of this particular genre, you won’t notice.

Track 1, Sex, Drugs, Rock ’N’ Roll is a cover of a number by another Finnish band, Shotgun Messiah, from 1991. If you like this sort of music, you will probably prefer the original, although to be fair bar the vocals, the two are much the same.

Track 2 is a passable cover of the Jefferson Airplane classic White Rabbit, although Grace Slick might beg to differ.

Track 5 is the title track, an original co-written with Tim Sköld, who appears to have lost his umlaut. Skold was born in Sweden, not Finland as Jyrki’s record label appears to think. This is fairly downtempo and pleasing as long as you don’t mind someone who calls you his slave and yearns to drink your blood.

Deviant Carousal is what might be called experimental and credited to Xiu Xiu, who in spite of the name originate from California rather than Beijing.

The final track is Last Dance credited to Not My God, which appears to be another Tim Skold project. If this is a dance, the dancers are either zombies or narcoleptic.

All the tracks on American Vampire are on the short side, and this is a record which is to be recommended for Halloween rather than Christmas, but if you are so disposed you can buy a hard copy rather than download; it is released officially on December 21, which means if you opt for the former, shipping times from California under the current restrictions mean you should get it in time for Christmas 2022.