Crawlers - Loud Without Noise

First thing’s first: ‘Loud Without Noise’ is flawless. Wildly ambitious, it works to showcase perfectly why the Merseysiders have garnered such a fervent fanbase to date – and just how far they could go. While Holly Minto’s way with words shows there’s definitely a touch of the emo about them (“I couldn’t fix you / So I broke myself instead” one standout case in point), and the huge pop choruses of opener ‘I Can’t Drive’ do agree, across these six tracks Crawlers touch on practically every element of alt-rock. The no-holds-barred ‘Feminist Radical’ hints at the metallic with its sheer power, yet simultaneously has hints of Goat Girl’s lackadaisical nature in its resigned moments; ‘Fuck Me (I Didn’t Know How To Say)’ pairs deliciously grungy riffs with a bouncy Weezer-esque bassline to match the track’s internal conflict; there’s early-’00s dance-punk rhythms all over the playful ‘I Don’t Want It’, while the industrial ‘Too Soon’ sounds like Nine Inch Nails remixing Wolf Alice: absolutely massive. Closer ‘Hang Me Like Jesus’ meanwhile, is exactly the kind of lighters-in-the-air-moment fellow rockers Creeper are so adept at. Notable, too, is Holly’s vocal, which has all the power and reach of a soaring Hayley Williams, but with a rasp not unlike Brody Dalle. But best of all is that while ‘mixtape’ may to a cynic (ahem) suggest ‘hastily-cobbled collection to bait the new year’s tipping lists’, ‘Loud Without Noise’ truly feels like a record. And what a record it is.