Track Listing
Hallelujah!
Be My End
Born Cold
Cyanide
Celestial Violence
Annabelle
Paradise
Poisoned Heart
Thorns of Love
Four Years Ago
Holy War
Napalm Girls
The Crown of Life
Black Moon
All My Friends (Hidden Track)
Creeper’s latest LP, Sex, Death & the Infinite Void is a wonderful concept album and a great way to bounce back from their rocky debut several years ago. It’s an album that combines fast-paced punk rock with an apocalyptic story about the end of the world. The choruses in almost every song are catchy, full of interesting lyrics that tie back into the concept. It’s an album that projects a deliciously dark, theatrical and campy sound that Creeper make their own.
The album itself is laced with numerous different intermissions that work well to break up some of the different sonics. The story works incredibly well too, with the first half acting as a scene-setter before the second half dives into the meat of the concept.
In its simplest form, this is a forbidden-love angle playing out in a quaint American town. A boy is found in a mine with a prophetic message pertaining to the world ending in 7 days. However, he winds up romantically involved with a girl there; a romance that was never meant to be and will almost certainly end in disaster. ( As heard within Napalm Girls’ chorus of “Her kiss is violence.”)
“Be My End” is a frantic opener that teases many of the themes that play out throughout the album.
“Cyanide” is my personal favourite here though and every part of this track is near-perfection. The piano roll at the beginning is different and cleverly foreshadows a motif found in All My Friends at the end of the apocalypse.
The lyrics in “Cyanide” are great, teasing forbidden and doomed love. That’s to say nothing of the chorus either which switches keys in such a good way that it’s hard not to feel goosebumps every time this occurs.
This track ultimately marks the turning point of the album, which slows the tempo ever-so-slightly to deliver more of that heady romance and really lean into the romantic side of things. This is a recurring theme through many of the following tracks, with “Annabelle”, “Paradise”, “Poisoned Heart” and “Thorns Of Love” great examples of this inner struggle playing out in audible form.
“Napalm Girls” is another strong contender for the best song on the album too and this frantic, dark, theatrical track increases the tempo once more as the apocalypse fast-approaches. This eventually crescendos into “All My Friends”, which serves as a reflective piece looking at the journey taken across the album. It’s a wonderful way to finish the album too and notably, there’s no guitars here at all.
Conceptually, this LP absolutely nails its themes and does so by marching up to the gates of Hell and delivering one of the best albums of the year. There’s some excellent songs on offer here, ones that work consistently as a straight journey from start to finish but also as stand-alone tracks.
Sex, Death & the Infinite Void is a deliciously dark, theatrical concept album about the end of the world. If this is what the apocalypse sounds like, it seems befitting that this is audibly how 2020 is remembered.
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Verdict - 9/10
9/10