Vampire Valentine release their self-titled debut album on Morella Records
Vampire Valentine release their self-titled debut album on Morella Records on 28 August 2026, a 16-track record on digital and CD produced by Ricky Conover.
Vampire Valentine, the darkwave and post-punk duo from Newcastle upon Tyne, release their self-titled debut album “Vampire Valentine” on Morella Records on 28 August 2026. The record runs to 16 tracks and 78 minutes, and comes out on digital platforms and on CD.
The album closes a year that began with a signature. Vampire Valentine signed to Morella Records on 15 January 2026 as the label’s first act, a date Morella now marks as its own founding anniversary. Michael Longstaff handles vocals and co-production, Kieron Wright plays bass and guitar, and US producer Ricky Conover supplies the synth and instrumental work that runs between the songs. Tony Gunk and label founder Blake Carpenter also produced, with Carpenter contributing guitar and handling mixing and mastering.
The duo bring angular guitars, driving bass and vocals pitched between melody and unease, mixing post-punk urgency with gothic atmosphere, cyberpunk ambience and 1980s synth work. Five singles ran ahead of the album across 2026: “Tears” on 14 February and “Skin” on 27 March, then three drawn from the album itself, “In The Dark” on 19 June, “Cutting Ties” on 24 July and “Another Day” on 7 August.
Longstaff describes the record as an unedited version of the band rather than a polished one.
“We didn’t set out to make something comfortable. Every song on this record came from somewhere real, and we weren’t interested in softening any of it. This is us, completely, for the first time at full length.”
Carpenter explains why the album was worth building the label around.
“Vampire Valentine were the first artists to sign to Morella Records, and this album is exactly why. There was no hedging in what they were, not from the very first conversation. You can hear it in this record: The Cure, Bauhaus, all of it filtered through a band that already knew exactly who they are, finally given the room to say all of it at once.”
Vampire Valentine’s debut album: the 16 tracks
- “Suffocation”
- “In The Dark”
- “Cutting Ties”
- “August Heat”
- “Imperfect”
- “The Other Side”
- “Empty Heart Heavy Eyes”
- “You Weren’t There For Me”
- “Obelisk”
- “Another Day”
- “Resurrect”
- “Don’t Talk About It”
- “Forsaken”
- “Black Sky”
- “Final Breath”
- “Lovesong (The Cure Cover)”
Six of the sixteen tracks are instrumentals, most of them Conover’s. “August Heat”, “The Other Side”, “Obelisk”, “Forsaken”, “Black Sky” and “Final Breath” break up the vocal songs, with “The Other Side” reworking the chord progression of “Imperfect” at a faster tempo and “Final Breath” closing the record on ambient synth. Longstaff has said the closer brings survival horror games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill to mind.
Among the vocal tracks, “Resurrect” is the band’s tribute to Bauhaus, built around the idea of being undead, and takes Longstaff’s delivery to its harshest point on the record. “You Weren’t There For Me” is the song he has called the one he is most personally tied to, though he has not said who it is about. The Cure cover “Lovesong” closes the running order and is exclusive to the Bandcamp edition.
The album is available on all digital platforms and as a deluxe CD shipping from the UK through the Morella Records store and the band’s Bandcamp page.
About Vampire Valentine
Vampire Valentine formed in October 2025 in Newcastle upon Tyne, founded by singer and producer Michael Longstaff and bassist and guitarist Kieron Wright. The duo cite The Sisters of Mercy and Twin Tribes among their reference points, and mix gothic rock, post-punk and darkwave with synth work from US producer Ricky Conover, who records as Forerunnerx.
Their first releases came out on their own Bandcamp page: the single “Porcelain” on 14 November 2025, followed by an instrumental edition, and “Thorns” on 1 December 2025. On 15 January 2026 they signed to Morella Records, the independent label founded that same month by Blake Carpenter and based in Georgia in the United States, with a roster covering goth rock, deathrock, darkwave and post-punk. Vampire Valentine were the label’s first signing.
The year that followed produced the album “Dry Remains” on 14 January 2026, the “Pale Dawn” EP on 17 April, and the five singles that led into the debut. Side-Line covered the run as it went out, from “In The Dark” through the “Cutting Ties” single to the album announcement in June, when the release still carried no exact date. The self-titled album gathers that year into one 78-minute record and is the duo’s first full-length under the Morella name.
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