(This was originally written on my tumblr blog a little while ago, with Creeper announcing their new record Sanguivore 2: Mistress of Death, I thought it would be worth remastering it)

Intro⌗

I made a post on here about a year ago about seeing Creeper play a headline show at London’s Roundhouse, a show which brought an end to the era of their last album, Sex Death and the Infinite Void, and an end to their time with American creativity devouring label Roadrunner. it also came with a new song Ghost Brigade to set the tone of the new era and hold fans over for a full release at some point in the future.

This show came at a really interesting time for my relationship with the band, I had been falling out of love with them slowly but surely since the end of their first album cycle back in 2018. A combination of a disappointing ending to the album cycle and very disappointing second album cycle, my tastes changing and a several unpleasant experiences with other fans lead to me being very ready to bookend my fandom of this band with a show, something I’ve done with other bands in the past. Luckily the show went some way to revitalizing my appreciation for them.

In the intervening 11 months, I’ve seen them close out a packed stage at an even more packed Slam Dunk festival, heard Ghost Brigade live and followed the announcement of their third album titled Sanguiovore. A darker, heavier project produced by Grammy award winning Tom Dalgety.

I wanted to collect my feelings on the record as I went through it, a sort of first impressions / general thoughts, mostly focused on the writing and production as that’s where my interests generally lie in discussing music.

Track By Track⌗

1. Further than Forever I really felt like this song struggled to justify its length, its 9 minutes purely because Meatloaf and Steinman did 9 minute songs so we should too. I had to listen to this track several times to fully get my thoughts together on it, and it felt exhausting to get to the end of every time. Despite that the track had some really cool musical motifs and despite it being a pastiche of Steinman, a lot of Creepers uniqueness shows through. There are definitely parts of this song that could have done with ADT or actual double tracking.

2. Cry To Heaven The Production of this track is really is what makes this track work, if the snare was even a tiny bit less punchy, or the synth less full, it would be all the worse for it. in terms of composition it takes a lot of its moves from Floodland era Sisters Of Mercy, its cheesy yes, but the performances really sell it, everything in terms of the performance is on point, and its very much held up by that production, I genuinely think that no other producer they have worked with could have made this song work. They manage to pull of a unironic up a fifth key change with as straight face, which is an achievement in itself.

3. Sacred Blasphemy Sonicly this is they’ve come so far to anything they’ve released previously, its got the AFI punkyness with a hint of Revenge era My Chem in it, but its still shown through the lens of this project, with its moody goth overtones. Will stays in a lower register for nearly all of the song, which seems to be a trend in this record. its a very short track, but it hits all the right notes despite that, in the same way AFI’s Sacrifice Theory on The Art of Drowning does. This track makes heavy use of double tracking for both vocals and guitar and it really adds to the atmosphere of the track. This the first track where their new drummer gets to flex their chops over the previous drummers much more wooden performances.

4. The Balled of Spook and Mercy A slower number, which is appreciated after the last one. The first track to really talk about the narrative in detail. Once again pulling from the Steinman playbook in terms of composition, performance and production, though there are elements of Murray Gold in the track composition, reminding me a lot of his early work on Dr Who. Lyrically, I struggle to place it, it reminds me a lot of folk and country songs that are more of a story with a backing track than a song. The guitar solo interlaced with a harpsichord reminds me a lot of Mike Oldfield for some reason.

5. Lovers Led Astray I got notes of surf rock in the main guitar motif. In a crude way of describing it, its sounds like the B52s decided to try and make a goth project. (have been reliably been informed this is what The Cramps sound like). I wish in terms of production it leaned into it more, the thick marshal amp sound does it a slight disservice. I really enjoy that the band have embraced synthesizers on the latest record. I think this is my favourite track, purely because of how weird it is. If you want a track that sounds like Judas Priest and Andrew Eldritch made a surf song, this is it.

6. Teenage Sacrifice This song is a perfect love letter to 80s metal, without losing sight of the tone of the rest of the project. It is VERY apparent that the producer worked with Ghost on some of their best work on this track, pulling out some of the same stellar production choices here that he did on Prequelle. I do wish there was a bit more too the verses musically, as their sparseness does leave you to focus on the lyrics, which are passable without being anything special, a common issue of classic metal which is usually overlooked because the tracks dont slow down to let you think about them.

7. Chapel Gates The Punk influences return with a vengeance, if Teenage sacrifice was Creeper do Judas Priest, this is Creeper do The Damned. it also has small amounts of the surf influence in it again which is a welcome addition to me. This song has one of the catchiest and most enjoyable choruses and I think this one is going to be a lot of fun to hear live. Much like Sacred Blasphemy it really lets their new drummer show off his skills with a set of complicated fills which would have been unheard of in previous tracks

8. The Abyss The Abyss is a short musical intro for the next track.

9. Black Heaven A wonderfully moody goth track, lots of 80s goth and post punk influence, from the slightly off kilter disco adjacent drum beat in the verse (again showing off their new drummers skills here), to the reverb drenched subtractive synths in the background and the minimalist motifs in the first 2/3rds of the song, the bridge and ending of the song drift back into something that fits the rest of the record more, with a ripping melodic guitar solo and layer upon layer of vocals gently taking the song to its end point with a ethereal repeated vocal part

10. More Than Death The final track on the record, in keeping with their previous releases its a piano and vocal lead ballad. Its certainly their most hopeful of their album closers, compared to Eternity In Your Arms’ I choose To Live and Sex Death and the Infinite Void’s All My Friend. This comes at a cost I believe, those two tracks were written from an incredibly genuine place, barely attached to the narrative of the previous tracks, commenting on the state of the band and the health of its main writers. This track, at first glance anyway, feels artificial in comparison, going through the lyrical motions of a Steinman ballad. In spite of this it is a very enjoyable closer and I think will make an appropriate song to end a set with.

I think my biggest criticism of the album is the lyricism, now lyrics have never really been the biggest strong suit of the band, this is album is no different, I think it sticks out a lot more here because the rest of the composition is so good, whereas the quality of lyrics haven’t really developed much since their singers previous bands early releases.

Overall this album represents a return to form not seen since the 2016 EP ‘The Stranger’ (potentially earlier depending on who you ask). Creeper have embraced what worked about their early work while being able to experiment with new sounds and styles on this record, leading to their best Album by a mile. it’s cheesy yes, but they lean into it in a way that makes this the musical equivalent of a hammer horror film

My thoughts in 2025⌗

Wow! My opinions have changed a lot on this record in the year and change since I wrote this. Having seen the band play this record at several shows, including last week playing the album in full, I feel like a lot of the tracks have justified their existence, Futher than Forever more than most. In that regard Creepers punk roots remain.

My main criticism of the clunky lyrics stands however, with no sign of improvement on the first single of the next album. But overall I view this record a lot more positively after repeated listens and several live shows.