So Nine Black Alps’ third album Locked Out from the Inside was released on 5th October 2009 – 17 years ago last Monday – which is actually insane. I mean, I’ve been around and existing for the two albums the band had released before it. But when it comes to Locked Out… I vividly remember being very excited for its arrival after ‘Buy Nothing’ was released as a download, and sort of its first single, in April 2009. The song was the first sign that the pummeling, heavy but melodic hard rock that I really liked the Alps for – exhibited on debut 2005’s Everything Is – was back, after they’d gone down a softer, for lack of a better word, approach on 2007’s Love/Hate. ‘Buy Nothing’ was on repeat, I tell you. Sometime between April and October when I was probably looking for the song again, I came across the band playing what appeared to be a new song called ‘Vampire in the Sun’ live on the television station Channel M – a channel exclusive to the people of Manchester – via a YouTube video. Gonna embed that exact video below. And after hearing it, I was all in. I had a deep, deep feeling that this forthcoming album was going to be special.
Things got even better, because the album ended up being streamed exclusively on we7.com, a whole two months earlier. That’s how the site looked in December that year. So I’ve been listening to the album since August 2009. It’s crazy. Time is definitely something. I liked the whole thing there and then. Credit for changing things up on the last album, but this was the Nine Black Alps I knew. ‘Vampire in the Sun’ is Locked Out’s… opener. It’s a strong one. Opens very boldly with frontman Sam Forrest on guitar, laying down the song’s riff, before everyone else launches in to properly get things underway. The phrase ‘Vampire in the Sun’, you’ll see it and think there’s a lot of angst behind it. I know that’s what I definitely thought. Vampires, blood, Dracula, gothic, other associations. But thinking about it for the sake of this post, I think the song captures a narrator who tells themselves that they’re going to see the good in people, even though they may have done wrong in the past, and make the best out of the day no matter what happens. Very quickly though, the narrator finds themselves way out of their depth. They’re already a pessimist at heart and consider themselves a bit of a useless person, a bit like a vampire in the sun. ‘Cause they die once they’ve been exposed to sunlight and all that. It’s still very angsty actually after laying my interpretation down.
Song’s structure, pretty standard. First verse, second verse, chorus, third verse, chorus, instrumental break, chorus done to death ’til end. Still executed very nicely. My favourite part? When Forrest yells out ‘Sun’ followed by that moment of silence before the band fall into the song’s final moments. I still get chills in that silence. That exact part was what sold me when I heard the song the first time via the aforementioned live performance. I got a physical copy of Locked Out from the Inside in January 2010. Still have the CD somewhere around. I was always looking forward to whatever Nine Black Alps did after it. 2012’s Sirens came around, and what turned out to be their final album, Candy for the Clowns followed a couple years later. Sadly, I never liked those two albums as much. As a result, I sort of see Locked Out… as the last, really great album the band did. I can firmly say it’s my second favourite by them. You can probably guess which one’s on top. But as I’ve come to the realisation that this’ll be the very last time a Nine Black Alps will ever appear on this blog, I’ve got to make clear that all of the music the band did I just personally hold a great attachment to. Was just 10 years old when I came across them, thought they were cool and liked them ever since. They also used to see my posts whenever I wrote about their songs on the old Blogspot site and liked them on their Twitter page. If they were to reunite one day, with the original members too, I’d be intrigued to see what came out of it.
