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One Short Tiara - Vampire Towns (2008)

One Short Tiara emerges from the darkness with Vampire Towns, their sophomore album. A stark departure from the sugary pop of their debut, Vampire Towns is a sonic exploration of disillusionment and defiance. It's a testament to the band's resilience, a collective scream into the void in the face of an industry that threatened to devour them.

The recording process was a pressure cooker. The band, still reeling from the manipulative tactics of the label, grappled with their evolving sound and the pressure to conform. Natalia's frustration with the "pop-punk pinup" image bubbled over into lyrics that excoriate the music industry's exploitative practices. Drug references and metaphors pop up everywhere on the album. Birdie's guitar work became a weapon of dissonance, a sonic middle finger to both the industry and the suffocating expectations, rather than the sugary hooks of RebelReeindRepentRepeat. Even Jen, battling her own demons, poured her pain into her bass lines, adding a layer of melancholic depth.

Vampire Towns is a genre-bending odyssey. The album careens wildly from blistering punk rock anthems to haunting dream pop ballads, all punctuated by moments of unsettling ambience. There's a rawness here, a vulnerability that wasn't present on their debut. It's the sound of a band baring their soul, refusing to be silenced.

Critics were divided. Some hail Vampire Towns as a masterpiece, a powerful statement against the industry's manufactured pop. Others find it disjointed and unsettling. One thing's for sure: it's not your typical teenybopper record. This is a record that forces you to confront the dark underbelly of fame and the struggle for artistic integrity.

Vampire Towns marked a turning point for One Short Tiara. It's a record that pushed them to their limits, testing the very foundation of their friendship and their music. Neither were fully intact by the end.

Pictured here with the censored album cover found in most stores. Under the brown paper was an image of a punk, from behind, crucified. The ambiguity is apparent in the image. Which one was being crucified, or was it all of them?

Jen's last appearance with the group.