First things first, I think the name is excellent. Anyone who uses a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” character as a band name at least has a good sense of humor. It makes sense too once you consider the dark kind of music contained on “Urban Gothic”. Not Not Fun Records released this album, and it makes sense considering the heavy synth nature of the album.
Urban Gothic is dark, but in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. The way a lot of horror movies include humor at strange moments to lighten the mood. Xander Harris has the good fortunate of opening for some particular favorites of mine, Shit and Shine being one, Expo 70 being another. But while those bands are pretty readily established, Xander appears to be a work in process.
Some of the songs on here are fairly decent but nothing really comes out at me. Longer tracks such as “Tanned Skin Dress” and “The House” fare well. The shorter tracks come across less distinctly. Most of the album tries for an electro-industrial vibe, and some of the songs do meet that requirement. Electro-industrial can be somewhat tricky, as the wrong mix can result in it sounding a bit cheesy. Unfortunately a few of the songs fall victim to sounding not kitsch, but just plain generic.
There is enough here to give me hope about future Xander Harris outings. For every song that doesn’t exactly meet its mark “When the Hammer starts to Swing” there is one that does “End Credits”. It is a bit of a mixed bag of quality, but next time around Xander will have a better feel for what works and what doesn’t.