Amplifier return with their sixth and most definitive album to date, Trippin’ With Dr Faustus, due for release via Rockosmos this June 30th. First track ‘Kosmos’ instantly delivers Amplifier’s calling cards of massive riffs with lyrical sentiments that reach far beyond space, time and the limitations of ones, zeros and polycarbonate manufacturing. The story of Faust is more relevant than ever in the 21st century.

In stark contrast to the compact kidney punch that was 2014’s Mystoria, Trippin’ With Dr Faustus, like all epic journeys, is in no rush to let the plot unfold and spill out its secrets. “Each child is a child of circumstance” summarises frontman Sel Balamir. The genesis of the idea of TWDF lies neatly in the heart of the song ‘Silvio’ - originally written in the period around 2011’s ‘The Octopus’. ‘Silvio’ didn’t make it onto that behemoth double album, “it didn’t really fit in with the album’s universal themes.” But the ideas lurking in ‘Silvio’ persisted and soon made their own bed. “Who doesn’t want to make a record about our relationship with The Devil? The ultimate baddy…” ‘Silvio’ was very specifically the story of Faust, albeit renamed in reference to Italian Faustian politico Berlusconi, and thus became the template for the rest of the album.

Recorded between 2014 and 2016 at Amplifier’s studio in Manchester, TWDF was produced by Balamir, who also designed the now traditional Amplifier packaging and artwork. A decidedly European affair, the album was mixed by Spanish engineer/producer Iago Lorenzo in Vigo, Spain, and mastered by Robin Schmidt at 24:96 in Karlsruhe Germany.

Much of the sound of TWDF is owed to the chance acquisition and the ensuing slow, tedious and loving rebuild of an old 2” Otari Tape Machine, which had been left to the band in a bequeathment  following the untimely death of an old and much missed colleague. This retro piece of gear lead to a new and more intricate studio-based focus on the record – compared to the previous approach to ‘Mystoria’, rehearsing the record for several months and then recording the whole thing live in a few days. TWDF evolved slowly but gradually over 18 months as the tape machine repeatedly died and was each time reanimated with components scavenged from the internet from other old and dead machines scattered around the globe.

Meanwhile, following the release of 2014’s Mystoria on the Thomas Weber’s Superball label, a relationship that the band had been very happy with, Sony Music acquired Superball’s parent company Century Media, moving the ownership of the label from independent hands to corporate control. This was a position that Amplifier were not comfortable with. In 2004 exactly the same thing had happened around the release of their debut self-titled album. In this incident BMG raided MFN parent company Zomba to dissolve the label – in turn being cannibalised by Sony a few months later. “It always ends up with the little guys getting lost down the cracks…that’s why we decided to bail while we could – for better or worse”, Sel adds.

 ‘Trippin’ With Dr Faustus’ Track listing

1. Rainbow Machine

2. Freakzone

3. Kosmos(Grooves Of Triumph)

4. The Commotion (Big Time Party Maker)

5. Big Daddy

6. Horse

7. Anubis

8. Supernova

9. Silvio

10. Old Blue Eyes

Having just made their triumphant main stage debut at Download this year, Creeper build on the success of their Top 20 debut album Eternity, In Your Arms with the announcement of their biggest UK headline tour to date. Featuring an ambitious new stage production which will elevate the band’s renowned theatrical presentation to a whole new level, the ‘Theatre of Fear’ tour includes their biggest London show to date at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire and concludes with a homecoming show at Southampton’s Guildhall.

A statement from the band reads, “This Winter, we invite you to the Creeper ‘Theatre Of Fear’ tour, a one of a kind production being brought to six theatres across the country. Not only will they be our biggest ever headline shows, they will also be the most significant in the scale of ideas surrounding them. After a year travelling the world, we are excited to bring home our most ambitious project to date. Two years after James Scythe’s disappearance, this December we invite you to shake hands with the stranger of tomorrow.”

Tickets are on general sale now from Livenation.co.uk and Ticketmaster.co.uk.  In addition to the UK shows, Creeper have been confirmed to play all 41 dates of this summer’s North American leg of the Vans Warped Tour. The band have also released the single ‘Misery’ (out July 7) which is a mainstay of the band’s fervent live shows. Will Gould’s stripped back emotion-packed vocal delivery on ‘Misery’ demonstrates a side to Creeper that contrasts their usual visceral punk attack.

The video for ‘Misery’ represents the conclusion of Creeper’s Eternity, In Your Arms trilogy.  Set over the course of a Christmas week, the two previous videos – ‘Hiding With Boys’ and ‘Black Rain’ – followed the adventures of James Scythe, a private investigator who travels to the South Coast to debunk the legend of ‘The Stranger’ whilst also seeking to put his own demons to rest. In ‘Misery’, the story comes to a surprise denouement as Scythe comes to a final confrontation – yet, as is the way with Creeper, this conclusion continues to pose further questions.

Eternity, In Your Arms finds the sextet pushing hard against the boundaries a ‘punk’ band can be expected to produce in 2017. The album is the third installment in a trilogy of records (after the highly acclaimed EPs The Callous Heart and The Stranger) loosely based around J.M Barrie’s Peter Pan. Eternity, In Your Arms sees the band wrestling with existential crises, personal failures and emotional desolation via the kaleidoscope of a richly drawn narrative tapestry.

THE ‘THEATRE OF FEAR’ TOUR

DECEMBER

3rd - Glasgow ABC

4th - Birmingham Institute

5th - Bristol Trinity

7th - London Shepherds Bush Empire

9th - Manchester Albert Hall

10th - Southampton Guildhall