With "The Late Hours," the Vladimirs release their fifth studio album after a five-year hiatus. The band has been around since 1995 and explicitly points out in their info text that the Vladimirs do not play horror punk, as that term didn't even exist back then. They describe the music on the new album as a mix of horror punk, metal, goth rock, punk, and even hardcore. However, to broadly describe what kind of music this is, I still use the term horror punk (even if it might annoy the band), because it probably best conveys to most people what they are dealing with.
The album features 12 tracks with a total playing time of 43:38 minutes, although the last 15-minute (!!!) track takes up a lot of that time. The other songs are pleasantly short and concise. Well, there are a few songs over four minutes, but that's acceptable. With the band's own description of the various musical styles of the album, they really capture the concept quite well. You can find influences from metal, punk, and hardcore. The reason many people might label the gentlemen as horror punk could be due to the very deep, melodic voice of the singer, making the comparison to Glenn Danzig quite obvious. The album features various rather metallic guitar solos, and you can often hear a driving bass drum. In the song "Where to run?" I distinctly recognize a Metallica riff from "Seek and Destroy." Not everyone can reinvent the wheel. The immediately following song "Stoichea" comes across as completely instrumental and semi-acoustic compared to the fast songs before it. Since it quickly continues with a song in the usual intensity and speed, I wonder why this song had to be placed exactly at this point, as it somehow feels completely out of place. Especially since after this faster song, the last 15-minute track comes, which also starts very slowly. Although it does pick up speed at some point, it features some guitar play and conveys a certain atmosphere. However, it could have been split into two or three songs. It feels like there was a need to urgently include that one riff or the fat organ part. Keeping everything in the same key does feel a bit excessive and perhaps not really necessary. But everyone has their own taste. Overall, the album has several songs with hit potential. Lyrically, it tackles a variety of themes, not just the typical horror movie stuff, which is truly refreshing. The cover is relatively simple, featuring a demonic man in a black robe pointing at a clock; they could have definitely done a bit more design-wise.
