NAMED as the Best British Newcomer at the Kerrang! Awards, Best New Band at the Metal Hammer Golden God Awards and Best British Newcomer in Rock Sound readers' poll, it will be a triumphant homecoming as Creeper launch their long-awaited debut album with an in store appearance at Southampton's HMV.
The city six piece will perform and meet fans in the Above Bar store at 5.30pm on Wednesday March 29, the last of a mini tour of four HMV stores around the country.
Eternity, In Your Arms is the third instalment in a trilogy of records, following the highly acclaimed EPs The Callous Heart and The Stranger, loosely based around J.M Barrie's Peter Pan. Eternity, In Your Arms sees the band wrestling with existential crises, personal failures and emotional desolation.
"With The Callous Heart we wrote a bunch of heart-broken love songs based around Pater Pan's The Lost Boys," explains vocalist Will Gould.
"The Stranger' EP was full of more fearful songs about the things that terrify us - linking back to the Tick Tock Croc. With the album there is a combination of both of those things, but the majority of the record is about addressing those concerns - things we've been through in our real lives - from a very immediate, present standpoint."
The protagonist on the album is James Scythe, a private investigator who travels to the south coast to debunk the legend of The Stranger as well as putting his own demons rest - but then mysteriously disappears.
Such is the detailed, immersive experience that the band have built in the two years since their inception, that fans know not only the hotel Scythe stayed at in Southampton but the specific room number, as well as having access to a library of podcasts by him and a network of websites he frequented before seemingly vanishing into thin air.
Ostensibly a punk band, Creeper's sound draws on everything from Alkaline Trio and Jawbreaker to Meat Loaf, David Bowie and Queen. Orchestration on the album includes everything from trumpets and strings, to keys, spoken word poetry and close vocal harmonies.
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