DISCLAIMER: I did not voluntarily review this disc. It's Chris Thelen's fault. Really. Send the hate mail to him. (Editor's note: Never mind, I have plenty of my own.)

I suppose I was the most suitable person on the "Daily Vault" staff to review this on reflection, as I have played role-playing games -- including White Wolf Games Vampire: The Masquerade ™ -- for many years. I spent five years playing on-line White Wolf games; while I don't quite remember when V:tM came out, I do remember when Mage: The Ascension ™ came out, so I suppose I have some history with the game.

One of the things I learned in playing online White Wolf is that ninety percent of the players out there range from barely mediocre to incredibly bad. The vampire genre, in particular, seemed to attract a large percentage of idiotic, misanthropic lunatics whose sole reason for playing a vampire was to act like a two-dimensional antihero, a blend of superficial cool and posturing, soap-opera angst.

Know what? That pretty much describes this CD, too. Ninety percent crap and ten percent interesting, Music From The Succubus Club is at its best a fascinating look at vampire culture expressed through goth, industrial, techno, and dance music forms, and at its worst the most painfully inept expression of vampire kitsch since Fright Night II.

Don't get me wrong. There are some good moments on this CD, most notably The Cruxshadows' "Deception" with its moody violin line, Sunshine Blind's "Cold From Fever" (which has a great instrumental bridge), and Bella Morte's "Fall No More", the best thing on the disc with its crystalline production. Unfortunately, those are all the moments there are, and it goes rapidly downhill from there. After those tracks, the most amusing thing on Succubus Club is the liner notes, and that should be some sort of universal red flag.

I'm going to be gentle and not take apart the rest of the disc track by track, both because I don't believe in unnecessary cruelty (I suppose if I was a vampire, I wouldn't play with my food) and because someday perhaps a few of the worst artists on the disc might want to switch genres or styles... and if Alanis Morrisette can do it, anyone should be allowed to. But there are a lot of adjectives I wanted to use in this section, so as a public service I provide the following list to be applied wherever you'd like: monotonous, repetitious, trite, posturing, poorly produced, poorly sung, poorly played, dull, shallow, superficial, hilariously inept, awful, and about as likely to make me be interested in vampire culture (which has several valid points, and please don't consider this a condemnation of it) as having the last name of Van Helsing.

Please. Save yourself the trouble. This CD is marketing, pure and simple, an attempt by a mediocre gaming company to shore up a dying game. Even if you are into things nosferatic, it is not worth your time. Save your money for a couple of old Bauhaus CDs or something. Drive a stake in Succubus Club and move on.

Rating: D

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