Why so curious?

“I see those guys around town, like, all the time,” the gentleman to my left says, gesturing toward the record I’m holding. We’re both standing at the counter of Jackpot Records; I’m picking up a vinyl copy of Wampire’s new album Curiosity and he’s cradling an armful of used vinyl.

We exchange some brief pleasantries, talk about the local music scene in general and then part ways.

Later I thought back on his leading statement. There’s no need to second-guess someone’s claim of spotting Wampire’s two members around town, unlike most bands one finds on an album cover. They’ve been active participants in the Portland scene for five years now, and more than that they just feel like Portland.

Curiosity is a lot more mature than your average freshman LP: Songs like “Outta Money,” lead single “The Hearse” and particularly the epic track “Giants” take their time to develop.

While it’s true that Curiosity might be a record without any obvious hooks or ditties that will immediately get stuck in your head, I guarantee that if you give it a few spins you’ll find yourself whistling along to “Orchards” before you know it.

Wampire has a gift for creating moments of pure pop magic beneath dense layers of instrumentation, in spite of what might be some of the creepiest lyrics I’ve ever heard (specifically, the funeral parlor come-on of the closing track, “Magic Light”).

For having just two members, Wampire is able to craft an incredibly tight and effective rhythm section that gives even their most mercurial tracks an undeniable groove. It’s amazing that a band so small can create such expansive and diverse soundscapes on each and every track.

There’s an implicit spookiness that makes Curiosity an engaging and intriguing listen: A song about a “Spirit Forest,” the stark power chords that begin “I Can’t See Why,” the funeral organ that punctuates the best parts of “Orchards”—an interest in death and finality seems to hang over even the poppiest moments of Curiosity.

“Trains,” perhaps my favorite track of 2013 thus far, is a perfect example of this. Built around a wistful lyric about unrequited love, “Trains” could be considered the spiritual cousin of Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” with Stax-meets-Elvis-Costello guitar vamps, a too-soulful-for-indie-rock vocal and a saxophone line that sounds like it was played by Zombie Clarence Clemons.

In the fatalistic “Trains,” a relationship is undone “by a stroke of luck.” It was as inevitable as death itself.

A notable familiar sound on the record is the synthesizer, the return of which (did it ever really leave?) has become something of a controversial topic among music fans in the past decade. The instrument is all over Curiosity, but Wampire manages to draw from a sophisticated and varied palette of notes and washes.

To be sure, there are moments, like the intro chords of “Outta Money,” when you start picturing the music video for Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love”—but those moments are rare and always offset by others of pure magic, like the jangly riff that anchors “The Hearse.”

Like so many Portland artists, Wampire seem to pick and choose the best parts of popular culture and turn them into something new and interesting. I’d recommend Curiosity to anyone looking to get a sense of the best local music that Portland has to offer.

After the release of Curiosity, Wampire will spend the summer touring with Polyvinyl labelmates and fellow Portland band STRFKR, but they’ll be back in town on July 3 to co-headline a show at Holocene with electronic artist Onuinu.