Creepoid – ‘Cemetery Highrise Slum’

There must be something in the water in Pennsylvania right now, because whatever genre the musicians based there try their hand at, it is always perfectly executed. One of the names that has been steadily appearing over the last few years is Philadelphia based alternative rock band Creepoid, and after several releases for No Idea and Graveface respectively, they have now unveiled their latest album ‘Cemetery Highrise Slum’ on Geoff Rickly’s (Thursday, United Nations) Collect Records. While the band call Philadelphia their home, the album was conceived in Savannah, Georgia and recorded there with Peter Mavrogeorgis, who gave Creepoid the same epic treatment he did with revered artists such as The National and Sharon Van Etten.

The end result of ‘Cemetery Highrise Slum’ is a highly refined record of sweeping passages that sit perfectly next to slow, and meandering guitar parts that draw you into the albums core. It is then you are engulfed by the heart-wrenching, and honest lyrics that come from the souls of guitarist Sean Miller and bass player Anna Troxell, each adding their own unique layer to Creepoid’s dense sound. While last years self-titled album was rich in all of these factors in it’s own right, they have come into their own on ‘Cemetery Highrise Slum’.

As the fuzz of ‘American Smile’ begins to pour from your speakers it is instantly enchanting, and full of glassy-eyed melody. It shifts up and down in both tempo and mood while being soaked in reverb, creating a bleak and morose atmosphere. This continues with the harsh noise sections of ‘Devil In The Subtext’, through the suffocating ‘Seam’, which by this point you find yourself enamoured by Creepoid’s grandeur. However it’s not all darkness on ‘Cemetery Highrise Slum’, at least not on the surface, as they are able to cloak despair in uplifting guitar work on “Dried Out”, which takes its cues from ‘Isn’t Anything’ era My Bloody Valentine.

While there have been many hideous genre descriptors in music through the years, one of the most nonsensical has to be “slowcore”, which was originally used to describe Mark Kozelek’s highly influential Red House Painters. However it could be fitting to apply it to elements of Creepoid, as the brooding ‘Shaking’ slowly builds into a serene funnel of noise, while the wall of sound within ‘Calamine’ twists and turns over a simple, yet powerful drumbeat. In another homage to Kevin Shields, the reverse-reverb effect that is applied to the dream-pop of ‘Worthless and Pure’ brings the song to life, as the harmonies of both Miller and Troxall compliment each other in sublime fashion, before they end on the harrowing ‘Here’, which sheds it’s layers of beauty to reach an intense finale.

Now what makes Creepoid stand out from hundreds of other bands that know how to use effects pedals you say? The fact this is what Creepoid have been doing since the start, and haven’t changed their sound to reach this point, only refined what they have always done. It’s not a shoegaze record, and it’s not an indie record, it’ falls somewhere in between by pulling from a wide pool influences, but whatever you want to call ‘Cemetery Highrise Slum’, it is a mesmerising work of art.

GLEN BUSHELL