Vinterdracul and the Year of the Vampire
BLACKENED GOTHIC VAMPIRES, YES! Did you know that 2022 is being called the Year of the Vampire ? We didn’t. So consider us surprised when we found out after putting out the first of a suite of vampiric concept albums earlier this year. But it’s true… and sort of weird. One of the first real vampire novels — Varney the Vampire — came out 175 years ago. Carmilla 150 years ago. Bram Stoker published Dracula 125 years ago. And The Blood of the Vampyre came out 125 years ago. While acknowledging the 1819 publication of Polidori’s The Vampyre (h/t Ria Wigley), these are among first great vampire books and they all came out in this 25 year succession of publication. Even weirder… Nosferatu — the silent film era vampire movie by F.W. Murnau — came out 100 years ago. And 100 years ago, Christopher Lee — who would define the cinematic Dracula for modern movie audiences in his roles for Hammer Films — was born. THE LEE VARIATIONS So, back in February — unaware of all of this — we released o
