Transylvanilla

Heavy on the Vincent Price melodrama, every album by poppy Ontario psychobillies The Creepshow opens with an ominous sermon by organist Reverend McGinty. The theme this time? “Busy taking revenge.” This is the outfit’s third outing – second with vocalist Sarah “Sin” Blackwood – and though nothing is going to match the raw energy of her sister Hellcat on their debut “Sell Your Soul”, the clean production and flat-out enthusiasm on display here make for a solid entry. Taking their sermon setup as a full-on conceptual statement, this album displays a rare thematic consistency for the genre (no, Zombies and B-Movies don’t count): it’s a psychobilly road trip  to exact revenge, packed with all the speeding cars, pulpy murders and thumping standup-bass lines we’ve learned to expect from this oufit. Pleasingly consistent and increasingly poppy, The Creepshow know how to write catchy songs: from the doo-wop of “Sleep Tight” to Less-Than-Jake doppelganger “Hellbound”, Sin never misses a beat handling double-duty on guitar and vocals. Sure the wailing man-choruses and opening tracks get repetitive (they back-loaded this one, listen through!), but for a band that cribs equally from The Misfits and The Stray Cats, who expected otherwise? This is Canadian pop-psychobilly at its most promising – it just needs more sting and variety.

A-

Originally Published in The Peak, October 2010.