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Chris Kirby - Vampire Hotel
By Ryan Conway
(08/20/09)

I have just finished listening to Chris Kirby & The Marquee’s sophomore album, Vampire Hotel, and I have to say that Kirby has left me with a difficult task in reviewing this album. Why? Because of the mish-mash of styles he uses throughout the album can be a bit of a challenge to describe.

However, I do love a good challenge.

It has been close to three years since Kirby’s debut album, Rum & Religion, and with that time, he's had the opportunity to further his development as an artist. Kirby also had the aid of producer and the lead vocalist/guitarist for Big Sugar and Grady, Gordie Johnson, who produced Vampire Hotel. Kirby also produced portions of the album in Austin, TX at Willie Nelson’s Pedernales Studios.

Kirby has spent his career trying to create his own unique style by fusing the rock, jazz, R&B, funk and even the Motown soul genres together. This sounds like it could over-complicate things, yes. But Kirby & The Marquee have managed to make it work. Vampire Hotel is proof of that, as each song has its own unique blend of styles, although Kirby vocals for the most part will remain R&B-influenced.

The album offers a track that is almost pure funk in "Come Clean" and then gives something complete different directly after that with "Day Job," which blends together jazz-inspired saxophones, a pop style sound and rock-inspired drum beats.

The best examples of the various style combinations presented in the album are "Don’t Forget About Me," "Lift This Fog," "Entertainer of the Year," "Heavy Rain" and "Golden Year."

"Don’t Forget About Me" provides a tone of soft rock and provides some excellent funk beats in the background. "Lift This Fog" is perhaps the catchiest song on the entire album. It has the rhythm of funk and the memorable hook that can be heard in any pop song worth its salt. The song really stands out from the rest of the album thanks to bassist Craig Follett.

My personal favourite, "Entertainer of the Year", is one of the more distinctive tracks, because it is one of the few where Kirby changes the tone of his vocal style from a light R&B, to a heavier blues style. The song itself is a well-written and -performed piece, which serves as a critique of the music industry and how it focuses more on making musicians into money-making mechanism, rather than individual artists.

"Heavy Rain" is also interesting to note, as the drumbeats are much harder and have more of rock influence than the other songs on the album. Kirby manages to merge both his R&B and blues vocal styles together. The is one of the darker songs on the album but the saxophones and bass in the background provide some funk elements to keep the song from sounding too depressing. Drummer Mark Marshall does a superb job here.

"Golden Year" is an absolutely beautiful song about human mortality and the ageing process- heavy on the piano with a certain vibe about it that I can only describe as 'very retro'. It has that old-fashioned jazz club quality that never goes out of style.

At the beginning of this review I said that Vampire Hotel is a difficult album to comment on and it is. With all of the different styles of music that the band has merged into each song, makes it difficult to find the words to describe the record as a whole. In this particular instance that is a very good thing.

With a music industry that is constantly dishing out one generic product after another, finding a gem like Vampire Hotel where every song is distinctive from the one before it is very hard to come by.

Related links:
+ Chris Kirby Online (website)
+ Chris Kirby (MySpace)


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Ryan Conway is a second year student of the Holland College Journalism program. He is 23 years old and a graduate of Cape Breton University with a major in both English and Political Science. He is also a lover of all things nerd.