Camgirl by Crippling Alcoholism (2025, Portrayal of Guilt Records)
Baby I'm A Monster
Camgirl by Crippling Alcoholism is my personal Album of the Year for 2025 and has to be heard to be believed.
It’s hard to say whether it’s noise rock with pop sensibilities or pop with noise-rock sensibilities, but however you frame it, it absolutely rules.
The vocals shift from the slurred, dulcet tones of an alternate-reality evil Nick Cave to outright screamed confessionals. The guitars sound like they could be B-sides by The Cure, and the synths are the most playful I’ve heard since the heady days of Crystal Castles. All of this is held together by outright noise, along with some dark ambient interludes.
I was initially bemused by the band: their brutal name and gnarly artwork, reminiscent of a Pageninetynine record, all pointed toward a much heavier proposition. As the album opened up, and nothing attempted to “melt my face,” I was incredibly happy that my initial estimations had been so off-base.
The band has often been lazily compared to Chat Pile, though they really share very little beyond the “noise rock” label. I enjoyed God’s Country by Chat Pile, but I feel they never quite lived up to the hype and I haven’t been a huge fan of their subsequent output, though I respect them as a band and am a big fan of their Korn-loving bassist.
To me, Crippling Alcoholism is the superior band, immediately showing far more creativity and heart.
The second lazy comparison is Daughters, which is somewhat more apt but still falls short of capturing what Crippling Alcoholism are doing in terms of defying any single genre. That said, the last Daughters record was a masterpiece, and the space left in their absence certainly seems ready to be filled by something very Crippling Alcoholism-shaped.
The truth of the matter is that this is some of the most unique music of the last few years: it nods to multiple genres and bands but never fully commits to aping any of them.
Like a guy at a party who arrives alone, makes every guy laugh and every girl blush, and then leaves on his own with no good-bye, Crippling Alcoholism exist in no scene and refuse to do what you expect them to do. It’s highly personal and unique, and, as a result, incredibly engaging.
The band recently signed with The Flenser record label, a match made in heaven and fully deserved. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for them, as I’m so addicted to Camgirl that I’m currently struggling to listen to anything else.
Absolutely killer.
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