“They can write an arena-ready anthem with their eyes closed”: Goth’n’roll vampires Creeper are dead and loving it on brilliantly bloody new album Sanguivore II: Mistress Of Death

Creeper posing for a photograph while covered in blood.

It didn’t take long for Creeper to outgrow punk. The Southampton gang emerged in 2014 with a sound indebted to AFI and Alkaline Trio, but even then, something more ambitious lurked below the choppy riffs and gang-chanted choruses. After all, this is a band who spent years building paranormal, spooky lore with their early EPs and faked their own disappearance as part of the promo campaign for their 2017 debut, Eternity, In Your Arms.

They’ve since experimented with each album. 2020’s Sex, Death & The Infinite Void drew from Britpop, Nick Cave and 70s rock. Meanwhile, 2023’s Sanguivore was a metal-fuelled, 80s epic about two vampires on a blood-splattered joyride, in the vein of Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman. Brilliant from start to finish, it felt like the album the band had always been destined to make, and was awarded Hammer’s album of the year.