Creepoid – Cemetary Highrise Slum LP – Collect (2015)

So, this is one of those records that is either going to be great or a complete train wreck. The first and apparently last record from a band jumping from a smallish indie label (No Idea) into a newly formed offshoot of a larger distribution network (Collect Records) and, even more awesomely, entangling it all with the tainted money of Martin Shkreli (the Pharma Bro). One of the dudes from Thursday was the one running the label and I’d imagine that the separation from all that evil/easy money ultimately did that label in. Their URL from not that many years ago now lands on a Thai casino site so I’m not going to bother linking it. Bummer. I was also wrong about it being their last as the Burner 12″ was apparently the last thing they released.

I cannot remember where I picked up this record but I remember the rough time of my life. This was during a pretty shitty end to a marriage and an absurdly shitty denouement to the aforementioned marriage. Hazy and shoegazey was just about the perfect soundtrack to everything going wrong. The biggest problem was that pure 4AD shoegaze is, to my weirdly bent ear, just pop music with too many pedals in front of the guitars. Bands like Cloakroom, Nothing, and Creepoid were a near perfect compromise between the blackened and warped thing my musical taste had become after decade upon decade of black metal, power violence, and tough guy hardcore dominating my listening habits and the spilled pills with matching body pillows world of shoegaze-ish music.

Their guitars were scuzzy instead of just a wash of effects and brought on the totally obvious (and deserved) Sonic Youth comparisons. All of that said, this record is a bit of separation from the band’s history if only in production alone. This record sounds enormous compared to their earlier records and somehow cleaner and more focused. I had their earlier album Horse Heaven all but glued to my turntable after I first bought it and always thought the cymbals sounded unintentionally weird like they were somehow out of phase. That didn’t necessarily bother me or sound completely wrong but I liked the way they cut on this record better. The production boost on this record definitely made Creepoid sound subjectively better on this record. The slide guitar also seems more confidently placed on this one and less tentatively deployed. I mostly despise slide in every context and wish that there were fewer white dudes with soul patches on the planet to elevate their shelving priority at Guitar Center but this works surprisingly well in the oozing and psychedelic morass of what Creepoid is doing here. The slide parts work better for it not being immediately obvious what is producing those sounds. This was a good record for going through some shit and I still put it on regularly even though my world has generally resumed having a comprehensible shape again.

It’s too bad that this band didn’t get more attention while they around. You can Google up the meh on your own. I feel like Cemetary Highrise Slum would actually get a more favorable reaction now than it did when it came out but maybe the same old websites are still busy having bukakke parties over the newest variant of mumble-ly, Soundcloud bedroom rap to take notice of something like this. Seemingly doomed by situation or not, I really liked this record and wish that circumstances were better for its release. You can still find some of their stuff available at their bandcamp site so you should grab some copies, physical or otherwise if any of the above sounds like something you’d enjoy. You look like you could use some gently twisted music to make you feel better.