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How do you comply with the very best album of your decade-long profession? The one which pulled every little thing collectively in impressively fearless style? When ‘every little thing’ means goth rock drama, horror-punk opera and Jim Steinman-esque epics about doomed vampire lovers?
For Creeper, the query is wholly rhetorical. You do it another time, clearly. Halloween sees the arrival of Sanguivore II – when else? – however actually, it could be a disservice to name it the Reload to Sanguivore’s Load. Principally as a result of it’s even higher. The hooks are heavier, the peaks are larger, and the pacing is picture-perfect.
As soon as once more, the Southampton sextet labored with Tom Dalgety (Ghost, Rammstein, The Cult, Opeth), clearly a producer with a knack for capturing darkish and theatrical rock. Creeper have mentioned that it is a thematic sequel by which a vampire band rampages throughout America amid the Satanic panic of the eighties. Patricia Morrison’s spoken intro on A Shadow Stirs tells it one other means: ‘Rock music is a attractive vampire and tonight it’s feasting upon you’.
As ever, none of this half-baked lore and/or buffoonery works with out a host of supreme songs to again it up, and boy, Sanguivore II has ’em. That leads us into Mistress Of Demise, which rumbles together with metallic pomp earlier than a bone-rattling, prime Megadeth breakdown, opening the gates for a sequence of epic guitar harmonies.
As a lead single, Headstones is a no brainer – suppose Motörhead’s Burner cosplaying as Creeper. A briskly sensible three minutes of exploding guitars, double kick drums, rapturous gang vocals and, after all, handclaps. ‘Give up your soul to the sins of the satan’s caress,’ William von Ghould barks. The place can we join, mate?
Blood Magick (It’s A Ritual) feels like Belinda Carlisle post-unholy makeover. As superb razor-edged guitars scythe by nearly every little thing, Hannah Greenwood’s hovering vocals – the place the hook owes lots to Heaven Is A Place On Earth – are the proper counterpoint to Ghould’s deliciously droll baritone.
Brooding and irresistible, Prey For The Evening is sort of probably the very best music Meat Loaf by no means wrote. On Razor Wire, decapitation has by no means sounded sexier, due to its smoky piano and raunchy saxophone bursts. Because the spellbinding Pavor Nocturnus closes, it’s clear that Creeper have dropped the efficiency of their lives. Sanguivore II is a kind of uncommon and valuable rock information: immediately bewitching however oozing with moments to feast on time after time.
