Crippling Alcoholism have always navigated a delicate balance between musical depth and immediacy. A blend that few bands attempt, let alone master, but Crippling Alcoholism's two previous full-length records, When The Drugs That Make You Sick Are The Drugs That Make You Better and especially With Love From A Padded Room did exactly that. With a foundation formed through post-punk structures, darkwave aesthetics and noise rock explosions, Crippling Alcoholism never forget about the power of hooks and catchiness. Intricate hooks and stunning melodies threaded through their dark passages, while the lyrics dwelled unabashedly in decadence.
Their new record, Camgirl follows this trajectory while amplifying its contrasts. The darkwave dimension sets the tone, with the vocal delivering taking a cue from the '80s and extending a grand performance in "Mr. Sentimental." The post-punk implementations tie into this mould, their crystalline melodies stretched to dark extremes. "I Have a Key To Your House" recalls the Sisters of Mercy and Fields of the Nephilim vibe, the elusive guitar phrases channeling a gothic presence.
While post-punk and darkwave are occasionally steeped in a sense of immediacy, Crippling Alcoholism take it a step further. Their sensibility here comes from a pop influence, which though present in the past is now more in the spotlight. "Pretty In Pink" with its overarching chorus is a brilliant example of their ability to craft fantastic hooks, and they do not stop there. The contorted dance-ability of "LADIES' NIGHT" is sublime, the synth-pop presence of "bedrot" with its slow, dreamlike rendition feels otherworldly. In those moments they even take a baroque characteristic, reminiscent of Scott Walker circa Scott 1-4, where the pop brightness masked a looming emotional abyss.
But even within this pop perspective lies the contradictory nature of Crippling Alcoholism. Because the melodies of "Taravista" might appear magical, but the lyrical backdrop is steeped in gloom and depression, as the lyrics go "There's a reason why my son doesn't love me / Moms got claws and divorce is always ugly / Guess who's not getting a buck from me? / She starts with a "C" and ends in full custody." And it is not just the lyrical context. A track like "Monet" might feature the terrifying lines "Through torture, you can know people / And if it's slow enough you can owe people," but the music follows suit. Melody is swapped with discordance and the repetitive progression becomes excruciating. "Sweet Talk" takes a step into the heavier dimension, a doom weight that crashes all. Abrasive tones are always nearby, with both "Pliers" and especially the start of "Camgirl" diving into extreme metal territory, blastbeats blazing and vocals shrieking. These eruptions into extremity don't fracture the record, they instead amplify its emotional volatility, turning internal crisis into a manifested sonic rapture.
Crippling Alcoholism's Camgirl is a record for our times. Not only in its lyrical commentary, but also in its musical identity. What the band increasingly recalls is Type O Negative. Not so much in sonic similarities, but this duality between the immediate and the dark. Long-form compositions and lengthy records are just one common feature. The shared gothic allure is another. The difference is that while Type O Negative channeled a morbid romanticism, Crippling Alcoholism lean into a fetishistic imagery. The lines of the title track echo with that sense "There's a feeling when you hold me / Like I'll never fear again / I would unravel without you / That's no healthy, so they tell me, baby." Similarly, there is a parallel in the way both acts interact with the concept of misery. Where Type O Negative found a sense of humour, Crippling Alcoholism employ melodramatic harshness, as the lines in "Mary Kate & Ashley" display, "Cause all I know is my sadness, don't know who my dad is / Shoot my shot with death when I shoot up on my mattress."
But, most importantly, like Type O Negative did during their time, Crippling Alcoholism's commentary is timely. Here, the digital alienation is a key component, echoing with self-hatred in "bedrot" ("I fucking hate the way I look / Yeah I look like a fat fucking scumbag"), obsession in "screentime" ("You should see this fucking girl I'm talking to, man / She's so fucking hot / She's like an actress / I think she does some OnlyFans shit on the side, but I don't really give a fuck / She's nice to me and she's funny, too"), and self-punishment in "CAMGIRL" ("I'm just a user craving your abuse / I wanna float.") If Type O Negative chronicled the pre-digital malaise of the '90s, Crippling Alcoholism have become one of the few acts articulating the psychic disarray of our current age. But Camgirl does not just depict this lyrically, it mirrors its rhythms, its contradictions and its addictive volatility.
