Mark Vennis is perhaps best known as a film producer, yet he’s becoming equally renowned as post-punk poet with his band Different Place. For a decade-and-half Mark Vennis and crew have been delivering biting social commentary that’s sweetened somewhat by a punk-infused new wave sound. Small Town Vampire is the band’s latest release and finds Mark looking back on feelings of youthful alienation while marching forwards with his band towards a different place.
Attesting to his day job, there’s a cinematic nature to Small Town Vampire, and no more so than on the opening (and title) track. The words and angular chords combine in strange ways to sink their teeth deep into your memory bank. In some ways Mark reminds me of a younger Billy Bragg (although his singing is far more tuneful), and the two share a similar aesthetic; ‘Small Town Vampire’ chronicles the struggles we all face and then wraps them up in an easily digestible three minutes. It takes a real artist (a Lowry or a Morrissey) to find the beauty in such circumstances and Mr Vennis definitely has that skill. When he sings “Grew up in a satellite town, satellite of another crap town” as introduction to the following ‘Same Old Story’, it will strike a chord with many; it’s something we’ve all felt, yet it takes a Mark Vennis to verbalise it and make it three-dimensional.
The harsh, brutalist image on the sleeve of Small Town Vampire, along with song titles such as ‘Wild Suburban Boy’, suggests that the sound inside will be equally grating, and while this album does have a gritty, visceral realism, it can also be enjoyed on a more cerebral, gratifying level. There’s a message of hope here, and no more so than on ‘Slip These Chains’, where the band adopt a litheness that suggests they could escape any shackles placed upon them. Of course, it helps that they never lose sight of song structure and melody which makes ‘Hiding In Plain Sight’ both thought-provoking and earwormy. It’s a juxtaposition that runs throughout much of their work; the discordant and the melodic, the sweet and the sour, and the beauty found in brutalism, all of which makes Small Town Vampire an infinitely interesting listen.
While this is certainly no concept album, the songs are linked thematically, and this makes the seven songs a smooth, seamless listen. Clocking in at a cool 24 minutes, Small Town Vampire doesn’t hang around, but true to the old adage, it certainly leaves you hungry for more.
- Small Town Vampire is released via Gravel Track Music on 26th January 2024.
- Official Website
Track List:
- Small Town Vampire
- Same Old Story
- Wild Suburban Boy
- Slip These Chains
- World Stops Turning
- Hiding In Plain Sight
- Familiar Feeling Of Falling
