Video Premiere: “24Hr Vampire Film” — Seance School

Portland dream-pop concern Seance School just released their second full-length earlier this month and Rosey is proud to premiere the video for the single “24Hr Vampire Film.”

The new collection, called Not Our Shadow to Carry, actually does just that; over 14 songs it explores the darker, mystical recesses of both surreal relationships and their collective and fantastical delusions.

Led by principal songwriter and player Robin Washburn, along with a cast of additional support, the album flexes serious arrangement muscle with prickly guitar riffs that recall late-80’s alternative greats along with steady drumming and Washburn’s endangered vocals and mysterious turns of phrase. The winding song structures and darker textures bring to mind fellow twisted pop craftsmen such as Lansing-Dreiden, Everything Wrong Is Imaginary-era Lilys and this writer’s beloved Mabuses.

“24Hr Vampire Film” works as a fantastic opener, the forward post-punk bass line and place-setting melodies grounding Washburn’s menacing lyrics, with lines like “Mary Magdalene’s a ghost now / Jesus is lost at sea / Tow your car out of the ocean / Maybe he’s in the front seat.” The final refrain of “It takes a lot of blood for a man to live,” might lead to more questions than answers, but that is likely just how Seance School prefer it and the point refreshingly sets the theme for what follows.

The video matches a moonlit industrial glow to the song’s careful outpouring of whirrs and delayed clangs. As Washburn kicks the song into overdrive, that same dark serenity is shaken by cartoonish imagery and bolts of electricity.

Elsewhere on the disc, “Black & White World” marries the visual of vampires and hunted lovers to a Gothic waltz while “Dreamhouse” combines the same slow-burn croons with a New Wave drive that makes it a delightfully weird and danceable highlight. Similarly, “Sleepwalker” more fully foregrounds the female backing vocals along with a slinky groove that further highlights the distinct brand of cautionary sensuality that lingers throughout Not Our Shadow to Carry.

The end leaves even more up in the air as the second-to-last song “If You Die (In SF)” moves away from some of the more fully fleshed uptempo material for a spacey country tune of sorts. Lastly, the 57-minute (!) instrumental closer not only alerts the listener to the fact that Seance School have ventured into prog-conceptual territory, but that their follow-up could split off into another hundred different directions at any given moment.

Here’s hoping that it does.

Not Our Shadow to Carry can be bought digitally now here.