Sometimes albums fall into your lap and other times you scrape around. In April, Young Fathers was a slam-dunk and is still one of my favourite albums of the year. In late 2022, Hot Chip could be my only choice. Yet in summer 2023, I was caught between a few stools. Albums coming up from Blur (mid-July) and the pop of Girl Ray (early August) fell just outside the window of opportunity. In the end, it came down to two: Yuksek’s sun-drenched Dance O Drome and the leftfield synth nihilism of Creep Show. I love Yuksek, and have done for years, and it’s going to be one of my good times albums of the year, but in all its brilliance, I’m not sure how much we’d have to say about a chuggy, summery disco-pop dance album. So, Creep Show it was.
But Creep who? They weren’t a band I was aware of, but even after my ears were pricked by the involvement of John Grant, on further inspection it became more of a ‘why on earth haven’t I heard of Creep Show before now? The four piece reeks of musical invention, with Grant nestling next to Wrangler, a trio made up of Cabaret Voltaire’s Stephen Mallinder, legendary synth warlock Ben ‘Benge’ Edwards, and Tunng’s Phil Winter. When TINH worlds collide…. And when I gave it a listen it really did tick a lot of my boxes immediately: rich John Grant vocals: check (see Matinee). Synth weirdness: check (try Moneyback). Sparse arrangements: check (The Bellows). Bleak lyrics: check (Bungalow). Jaded worldview: definite check (hi, Wise). It really got its clutches into me from the off, and while I was still trying to decide on the August album, when I woke up one day humming its tracks it was all the indication I needed.
So what do you get? It’s just the right mix of sleaze, perfectly pitched arrangements and an intriguing blend of obtuse lyrics, with sonic obliqueness that just seems to hang together. And given its members, you can hear real craftsmanship underneath the headline-grabbing songs. It’s also worth noting Yawning Abyss is their second album. The first – Dynamite – came out 5 years ago, and is distinctly more wonky than this. It’s definitely worth a listen just to see the pathway between the two, as while hardly a soft sonic experience, Yawning Abyss is certainly more approachable.
The band came together off the back of a night celebrating 40 years of Rough Trade at the Barbican, where artists new and old performed (Hot Chip and Scritti Politti were also on the bill) and while Grant and Mallinder already knew each other, it all evolved from that night. There’s a nice alchemy across the four too, with Grant not just committing vocals – and Mallinder accompanies him in the arrangements too – but also keyboards, with drums, bass, and synths across Winter and Benge, all concocted by the latter’s array of vintage gear at his Memetune Studio in Cornwall. But it takes more than just warm 80s synths and drum machines to make good music but – in Benge’s words in an interview around their debut, “you turn on some of these things they kind of put out half a track before you manage to turn it off again [laughs] and then you refine it and add bits or take stuff out” – there’s a nice unstructured element to how the music can come together. But make no mistake, this album is no ramshackle affair. It’s tighter than a new violin string, with lush layers that envelop and a committed ability to fuck up Grant’s voice as much as possible. Because, while it’s a loose lineage to his (in my opinion) brilliant solo albums Pale Green Ghosts (made with Icelandic dance-poppers Gus Gus, and one I brought to this pre-pod blog back in 2013) and Grey Tickles And Black Pressure, melding Grant’s silken voice with electronica, this is a notable step further away from that.
There is a concerted effort to break up the richness in his distinctive vocals, a wish to remove any smoothness that may have sounded too ‘right’ over some of the slick, gossamer-thin percussion and melodies and warm synth notes and it’s something that marks out the album as sounding a good stride away from just a John Grant solo project with some cool musicians behind him. It’s also helpful that Wrangler are already a fully-formed outfit, and you can hear that in the quality of the arrangements that sound so well-honed. Take Moneyback as an example. This dystopian paen to fraud, lies and pyramid schemes roughs up the vocals, distorts the perfection. Matinee almost fires a gun through them, vocoded and then stuttered into sections, and it’s a clever gambit, as it adds them as further melody and rhythm, and shows there’s much more scope to music when you are willing to mess with the normal (something we also found pleasing in less extreme ways in EBTG’s Fuse when Tracey Thorn’s voice was also manipulated).
Is it a concept album? Perhaps, perhaps not. But its loosely-formed focus on a near-present world where the darkness is embraced (try the title track’s jaunty “Come jump with me into the maw of the big, yawning abyss / Don’t be silly now, you know you’ve always wanted this”) is just another means to give a wide pallet of material to work with. Its world is much more Back To The Future 2 meets Black Mirror than the cool futurism of Blade Runner. There’s a bit of joy to the embracing of the underbelly or society’s less alluring landscapes. Grant and Mallinder both sound like they’re having a hell of a time living in it too.
It’s a neatly-boxed 9 tracks and 41 minutes. And doesn’t really take any missteps. Away from the more sleek tracks, and away from the rest of the album, Yahtzee could grate, but it’s actually one of my favourite tracks on the album, where all the motifs are taken to extremes, Grant’s vocals smashed to bits with distortion and effects, as he chirps about playing ‘peeknuckle’ (whatever that is) while “I loosen your buckle” and Yahtzee “while the Nazi’s tear our nation apart”. Cheery! The only part that feels slightly self-indulgent is the six minutes of Steak Diane, which while it’s really listenable low-slung sleaze, perhaps could be half its length, but it also slips by each time when I listen to it, and the reprise of the Bellows turns around into the opening track and we go again. In Joey’s words ‘I find I’m into my second listen so easily’.
I’m interested to see what the rest of the gang make of it. I’m fully into ‘singing it when I wake up’ territory, and that is always the sign of an album that’s got its hooks into me. Its crept up on me without me putting up a fight, and I now really enjoy coming back to it, even as it fights with Blur, Yuksek, Julie Byrne and the rest. I can see bits of it really clicking with each of you (bleakness, edgy synths, hi Joey, strange pop perhaps David, the dancier stuff with Nolan) but I’m not sure if you’ll feel the same as I do. But isn’t that the joy of this all? All hail Creep Show!
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