Like cats and new curtains, eventually all goth rock bands can’t help but try their claws on a vampire album.
After the fallen-angel narrative of second album Sex, Death & The Infinite Void and its coda EP American Noir, this third concept album from Southampton’s much-celebrated Creeper goes for the goth jugular with its tale of anti-hero Spook and his ‘Armageddon girl’ and ‘bloodlust baby’ Mercy, a merciless vampire who turns Spook into her undead sidekick on the Steinman-esque nine-minute opener Further Than Forever – essentially Bat Lured Into Hell – and then takes him on a gory, murderous 45-minute feeding frenzy.
That’s pretty much it narrative-wise. Creeper’s major plot twists here are stylistic, letting their diabolical duo loose on a shapeshifting array of genres: 80s reverb rock (Cry To Heaven), Misfits speed punk (Sacred Blasphemy), synth-rock (the rather thrilling Black Heaven) and crypt-lurking glam (Chapel Gates).
With its Morricone choirs, Nick Cave funeral bells, American gothic tone and gallons of gore, The Ballad Of Spook And Mercy sounds like Kill Bill spliced with From Dusk Til Dawn, while piano lament More Than Death closes the story drenched in blood, regret and a little romantic redemption.
