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Tapping the Vein
Another Day Down

Dancing Ferret Discs

Posted: Tuesday, September 08, 2009
By: Ilker Yücel
Editor

Six years is a long time for any band to produce a new album, but with Another Day Down, Tapping the Vein seems willing to make it worth the wait. With a new bassist, a new producer, and a new record label, this new album sees the band further developing its electro-tinged style of goth rock while continuing to keep the emphasis firmly on melody and arrangement. To hear these 11 songs, one might feel slightly hard pressed to distinguish this album from its predecessor, 2002's The Damage, and indeed the band has maintained a consistency of style and method since then. However, the differences make themselves more apparent with repeated listening, as guitarist Mark Burkert's crystalline tones are much more polished, focused more on creating elegant tapestries that in the case of a song like "Bury Me" occasionally takes a classical or even jazzy feel. In the past, drummer Eric Fisher was solely credited for the programming, but with Burkert contributing, it is evident especially on a song like "Party Favors" or even "All My Heart" that the band opted for the electronics to shine through even more than on The Damage. Credit should be given to any drummer who can perform atop programming with the same precision one expects from the machine, and Fisher's percussion adds that indispensable live element that keeps Tapping the Vein from sounding like a rip-off of Curve or any other female-fronted electro/goth band. However, it is vocalist Heather Thompson who will undoubtedly garner the most attention from listeners for while her prowess had been demonstrated quite effectively already, Another Day Down sees Thompson taking her skills to their utmost as the harmonies that permeate through songs like "Time," "All My Heart," and "Clean" shimmer with the same icy ambience as Burkert's guitar tones, while also seething just as angrily on "Complicate It" or "I Don't Feel." Bassist Noel Conklin seems to hold his own with the low end, although it's only vaguely noticeable amid so many other impressive musical layers. Strangely enough, given the band's previous association with Nuclear Blast and with Another Day Down produced by Neil Kernon, renowned for his work with Cannibal Corpse and Nile, one would think that this album would be even heavier and aggressive than The Damage. Not that the album is lacking in that department, but as stated, it is tempered by maintaining the emphasis on melody and arrangement. As the role of a good producer is to emphasize and encourage a band's strengths, it should be no surprise that Kernon's collaboration in tandem with Tapping the Vein's innate sense of songwriting and arrangement would keeping the group firmly grounded in its roots in electronically driven goth rock.