EP review: Creeper – The Callous Heart
Being dark is a difficult thing to get right. You can don leather, 501s and boots all you like, but if it’s not convincing, you end up looking like Ricky Gervais discovering BRMC. Creeper aim to be dark, and, luckily, they pull it off with panache, while never taking themselves too seriously.
While they resemble Strange House-era The Horrors, they’re quite a far stretch away from Faris’ dream-rock. Instead, it’s traditional rock and roll gristle throughout, but, like all loveable anti-heroes, there’s a sweet edge lurking beneath. Opener ‘Black Cloud’ may be a little on-the-nose, title-wise, but within it contains the kind of pantomime evil lyrics Brett Anderson would doff his fringe to (our female protagonist is “spiking all (her) own drinks at the start of every night”), before it segues into an infectious, urgent chorus.
This then bleeds straight into the urgent ‘Honeymoon Suite’, which begins like a gloomier Gaslight Anthem, as singer Will Gould gives every word a charmingly OTT nuance, as if throughout he’s starring in his own Hammer Horror. “She is a sweet sleep, I am a nosebleed,” he whispers frenetically throughout the song’s best part, the middle eight, before the call-to-arms of ‘Allergies’ sweeps in.
Although the band are seemingly obsessed with death and darkness, there’s much deeper thought processes going on here; while the anthemic ‘Lie Awake’ discusses a “funeral for a feeling”, the themes are much more transient than graves and ghouls. They may be living in a permanent Halloween, but Creeper will be around for a much longer season. Best dig out the Ouija board.
Creeper play Birmingham’s O2 Institute on February 1st 2016.
Tied to the ’90s. I love anything with a good melody. Favourite acts include DIIV, Best Coast, Wavves, MBV, The Lemonheads, Bully, Pavement, Weezer, Wolf Alice, Mac DeMarco and Dinosaur Jr.