BY MIKE METTLER i JANUARY 13, 2024

John Palumbo is a no-BS artist. The once and forever Crack The Sky frontman has been on a mission to tell it like it is as a cutting-edge observational songwriter ever since CTS first hit the progressive-leaning rock scene in 1975. But every now and then, JP likes to put his music out solely under his own name, something he’s done today, January 13, 2024 — which, not so coincidentally, also happens to be his birthday — and that leads us directly to Vampire (Adobo Records), a visceral collection of 13 songs that once again reinforces Palumbo’s prowess as an artist who will not go quietly into the dark and stormy night. In short, Vampire is as biting an effort as anything John Palumbo has produced in his five-decade-plus recording career.

Fact is, Vampire offers a fresh yet retro/futuristic push-pull aural combo that serves as one of the year’s key opening salvos that foreshadows more than a few potentially unsettling months ahead. Dig the whipcrack snare hits, menacing sustained guitar riffs, wide-panned cymbals, and layered vocal sneer of the sinister, pluralized title track and the guttural low-end punches of “For Dear Life.” Meanwhile, “R U Real?” poses an almost unanswerable existential query regarding a modern-day pseudo-interpersonal technological conundrum above a bed of swirling ’80s synths and chest-thumping bass, with the electro-bred “Artificial Man” serving as its burbling adjacent brethren. And then there’s the final denoument accounting of the insistent “World Burning,” a dystopian warning that is perhaps closer to the present day than we’d all like to admit — replete with JP’s raw, a cappella opening warning shot.

You can check out the cool animated clip for the smoky manifesto that is the lead single “Jack Smith” right here.

While Vampire is indeed available on all major streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, et al, you can purchase the Vampire CD right now via Crack The Sky’s official store here, and/or pick it up at the merch table at most any JP and/or CTS live performance (or so I’m told). Vampire will also be made available soon in the John Palumbo section of the Adobo Records store here.  

I asked R. Lee Townsend, the production wizard behind the board for Vampire, how he and John got together to work on the new album. “The workflow was pretty typical,” Townsend observes. “John would complete the mixes, and then we’d go back and forth on adjusting processing, stereo dimensioning, and levels until everything was to everyone’s satisfaction. Then I’d embed the metadata into the files and ship them out to the [CD] manufacturer and streaming services.”

Previously, Townsend had been responsible for mastering duties on recent Crack The Sky albums like the band’s pair of 2018 releases Living in Reverse and Crackology along with January 2021’s Tribes, in addition to Palumbo’s last solo effort, May 2021’s Hollywood Blvd — but as JP told me himself, “This is the first time Lee and I have worked together in this capacity.”

Palumbo is responsible for the balance of what you hear on Vampire. “The music on Vampire is mostly done by John, with some appearances from Bobby Hird,” Townsend clarifies. (Hird, of course, is the co-lead guitarist in Crack The Sky.) “Bobby Hird and I have been playing music together since 1971, in Climbadonkey — and bands before that — and the early version of The Ravyns,” Townsend continues. “Back in the Climbadonkey days [circa 1974-79], we shared quite a few performance dates with Crack The Sky, and we had all become friends over the years. Bobby joined Crack The Sky in 1980, and he and I had worked on several music projects, developing Bobby’s music. The Ravyns 1980 EP was engineered by [CTS co-lead guitarist/producer] Rick Witkowski, and John worked on the production of the EP in a mixing capacity, so we have a history of working together.”

As to his own technical bonafides, Townsend adds that he “has an engineering background, having worked in broadcast radio and audio engineering/music production since my teens. I was fortunate to have worked under many notable music engineers and producers, paying attention and learning the ropes. Through those personal and industry associations, I was offered the mastering opportunities for Living in Reverse, Tribes, Crackology, and John’s prior solo CD, Hollywood Blvd.”

And with that, I leave you to go forth and enjoy the full breadth of John Palumbo’s Vampire. As JP himself sings on the title track, “Tonight there will be no mistakes made” — and you certainly can’t go wrong with your next 50-minute listening appointment (or three!) with the ominous American Gothic soundtrack that is Vampire.