2017 has been a phenomenally successful year for Southampton sextet Creeper. Their debut album, Eternity, In Your Arms received a rapturous critical reception across the board when it was released earlier this year. The album fired straight into the Top 20, and in the process elevated these black-clad outsiders into a mainstream proposition with the potential for an even bigger future.

Now Creeper put the finishing touches on the year by sharing their take on The Pogues’ Christmas classic, ‘Fairytale of New York’. It’s a faithful adaptation which adds some raw Creeper energy to the original, as Will Gould and Hannah Greenwood add some of their own flourishes to their reprisal of Shane MacGowan and Kirstie MacColl’s duet.

‘Fairytale of New York’ will feature on the band’s new Christmas EP which will be released on Friday. It will also feature brand new original song ‘Same Time Next Year?’ which contrasts the dark romance of Gould’s festive-themed lyrics with a towering holler-along hook. The EP closes with a stripped-back version of ‘Blue Christmas’, the enduring seasonal favourite that was made famous by Elvis Presley.

Of the Christmas EP Gould comments, “Ever since we were kids ‘Fairytale of New York’ has always been our favourite Christmas song. Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl trading insults in the lyrics and the overall sad tone of the song always appealed to us - we’ve wanted to cover it for some time. Alongside this we covered ‘Blue Christmas’ and our own original Christmas song too. The three songs form something of a miserable Christmas EP. We are really pleased by how it all came out and hope our fans will be too." This week sees Creeper embark upon the Theatre of Fear tour which will take their theatrical presentation to a whole new live level.

DECEMBER

4th – Birmingham, O2 Institute

5th – Bristol, Trinity (SOLD OUT)

7th – London, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire

9th – Manchester, Albert Hall

10th – Southampton, Guildhall

Calexico have shared a second track from their forthcoming ninth studio album, The Thread That Keeps Us, which is due out on Jan 26 via City Slang. New track, ‘Voices In The Field’ continues to find the group, led by vocalist/guitarist Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino, in fine fettle with an album that captures their stylistic variety and unpredictability, while still finding solace in limitless creativity. With less polish and more grit than ever before, ‘The Thread That Keeps Us ‘both honours enduring traditions and reveals Calexico’s supreme confidence in songwriting, ultimately setting a whole new standard for the band.

Burns explained the song, saying: "In the age of the extremes, when walls attempt stifling words, this song is inspired by the poems on postcards from those uprooted by war and oppression. It’s a song to remind us to open up our hearts and hear other voices sing their stories. I was listening to Mavis Staples, Bombino, Joe Strummer and Bob Dylan."

In bringing The Thread That Keeps Us to life, Joey Burns and John Convertino found a spiritual home in unusual surroundings—not in Arizona, but on the Northern California coast in a home-turned-studio called the Panoramic House. Built from debris and shipyard-salvaged timber—and dubbed “The Phantom Ship” by the band—the grandiose house and its edge-of-the-world-like ambience soon made their way into the songs. The specter of California also had a powerful effect: as both dream state and nightmare, its infinite duality is mirrored in the music, giving Calexico a new direction and new edge.

Working with their longtime engineer Craig Schumacher, Calexico co-produced The Thread That Keeps Us, gathering musicians from across the globe to dream up an earthy yet expansive sound spiked with jagged guitar tones and flashes of distortion. “There’s a little more chaos and noise in the mix than what we’ve done in the past,” Burns points out. Although that chaos has much to do with “where we’re at right now as a planet,” it also echoes Calexico’s dedication to constant experimentation. “Whenever we’re writing and we come up with something that feels too familiar, someone will end up saying, ‘That feels good, but let’s keep going and see what else we can uncover,’” Burns says. “It’s been really important to the arc of this band’s evolution for us to always keep on trying new things.”

The Thread That Keeps Us captures the anxieties and unease of living in tumultuous times. But while the album draws a kinetic energy from all that uncertainty, its lyrics unfold with a literary nuance and sense of setting and character. “Instead of writing straight-up protest songs, I want to tell stories,” Burns says. Largely inspired by his wanderings around Northern California during the album’s production, the narratives embedded in the record reflect on displacement, transitory existence, and—in Burns’s words—“returning to your home after being gone for some time and seeing how things have changed, and maybe not in the best way.”

Calexico 2018 UK live dates:

Mar 28 Bristol, UK @ Trinity Centre

Mar 29 London, UK @ O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire