South West England’s post-metal collective Vandampire are now streaming their debut full-length “Hope Scars”, out today on Ripcord Records. Decibel framed the record as eight tracks of “melancholy-drenched sludge riffs… betwixt and between placid, clean melodicism and buzzy noise passages,” tipping the hat toward Kyuss, Radiohead, and the kind of Neurosis-adjacent weight you find in the heavy bins at the shop.
The band describe the album simply: “Hope Scars is us throwing everything we’ve got into one record — heavy, messy, emotional. It sounds like what it feels like to fall apart and rebuild.” They approached it as “a kind of audio journey from city to country, tracing our own transitions through major life changes,” letting sprawling atmosphere collapse into punishing intensity and back again, “all revolving, of course, around the riff.”
Formed in 2018, Vandampire include ex-members of We Heart Records alumni andtheywillriot! and Serena Joy. Their approach mixes crushing riffs, post-rock ambience, and raw hardcore urgency, held together by a stubborn DIY instinct. After the self-released EP “You Will Be The Bones” in 2018 and the 2020 follow-up “The Last Good Thing Has Happened” (Land of Treason / Trepanation Recordings), this new record pushes further outward. Recorded at The Bookhouse and Hackney Road Studios in London, produced by Jack Ashley and mastered by Magnus Lindberg (Cult of Luna), it’s also their first with a second guitarist, widening the frame into bigger, slower, longer horizons.
Across eight tracks, the band thread visceral heaviness with immersive calm: dense guitars, thunder-hit drums, and vocals pushed to the edge. The sound draws from sludge, post-metal, and noise rock while keeping a hand on screamo-leaning roots. It lives in contrast—weather systems moving over one another, sometimes beautifully, sometimes violently.
If you want to sink deeper into this record, check out the band’s full track-by-track commentary — they break down where specific ideas came from, how certain sections were written, what emotions surfaced in the studio, and where recurring motifs tie the whole thing together. It’s a solid complement to “Hope Scars” and adds context that clicks into place after those first listens.
1. Only Truth
The song is a precursor for the title track Hope Scars. The rough idea of the record was for it to be an audio journey from city to country (but it’s definitely not a concept album!), tracing the band through some fairly hefty life changes. A few of us are into field recording so we thought it would be cool to incorporate into the record as an introduction. After we tracked the drums at the bookhouse studio in London, we had some spare time to record some random stuff – old organs, various percussion, corridor ambience, door slams, and even ran some mics outside to record the street noise of the city. We love ambient post rock type interludes that build into a big riff and this is what we had in mind.
2. Hope Scars
This is probably the most doomy song on the record and definitely the only one with a drum solo. Lots of intertwining big riffs which build intensity with melodic variations. It’s in 5\4 (and every other time signature) for those interested. The London Doom Collective have been amazing to us so we thought we should write something as a homage to the doom scene, slow and low and riff based, but chucking in a couple of awkward time signatures for the shit of it. The lyrics are an inward reflection on the lasting legacy left after the loss of a close friend.
3. Ultralow
This song came out of nowhere. Written on a bashed up guitar in the garden in the middle of a super hot summer. We wanted it to be angular and aggressive but with a great groove. So many influences on this one, from Russian Circles to Sumac to J Dilla. Lyrically the song is about pushing through hardship and struggle, but ultimately finding purpose in enduring love and responsibility.
4. In Ascension
We’re big fans of Mark Hollis / Talk Talk and wondered what our version of Spirit of Eden would sound like, so we came up with this. We’re all fans of albums that mix it up a bit, rather than sticking to one genre. It’s a slightly different direction for the band, it is gentle with strings and an electric organ, we’re super proud of it and think it balances the other songs well (but that’s up for debate…) Some might notice that the violin melodies here are also present in the intro track Only Truth.
5. Eaves
The song was a few years old and had been through a few different iterations but it took on a new life once we added a second guitar. We’re particularly stoked with the massive ending, think there’s an acoustic guitar buried in there somewhere too! I know Jack (producer) had a lot of fun with this track, suggesting parts / instrumentation etc… . The lyrics were written during the pandemic, after the loss of a childhood friend, it flips between being forced to witness loss from a distance and reflecting on how loved they were. The sample at the end of the track is a half speed guitar drone and some suburban ambient recordings. If we ever get to put it out on vinyl, this will be where the record flips as we end with a door slam, signifying the half way point in the record.
6. A Promise
Another song that had been gigged hard before the record. We wanted to write a tough guy, headbanger ‘smell the skunk’ riff and I think this is about as close as 4 non-bearded faux-metal playing media nerds can get to that. This one is really fun to play live – lots of interesting sections including triplet chug, and a breakdown featuring slide and acoustic guitar, which all builds to a crescendo. Took forever to get the tempo right for the record haha. Lyrically it’s about hiding from yourself when things go to shit, putting on a mask to hide how you feel, but realising that you can’t hide forever, particularly where your family / kids are concerned, and ultimately it’s them that give you the strength to persist. HEAVY STUFF.
7. I Will Miss Everything I Forgot
We tracked all the drums so quickly we had some spare studio time so this was a spontaneous recording we did with an old battered classical guitar in the corridor of the bookhouse studio with the wind rattling the shutters. For us this feels like the tipping point from city to country via a folky interlude, someone called it doom Pinegrove which we thought was pretty funny.
8. Let Ruin End Here
As we keep getting labelled as post-metal, we thought we should probably write a song that was over 6 minutes long… We think this features all of our strongest points in songwriting and probably where we are headed as a band. Doom and post metal riffs set against quiet beautiful moments creating a contrast which leads to a cachophonic ending. Lyrically the song is about confronting anxiety / fear, trying to make some attempt to embrace it, to build a life for yourself. But ultimately that’s not always as easy as it seems.
As with the intro, we used some field recordings from the countryside to signify the end of the record.
Anyway. We hope you enjoy it. It was a nightmare to make.
