Creak: The Depth Of Reality

You know that feeling of being a child tucked away at night, drifting into a blissful night’s dream but happen to hear a creak from the attic, it almost sounds like footsteps, right? One half of you wants to throw the duvet over your head and squeeze your eyes shut but the other, more dominant, half of you wants to sneak out and investigate the noise that’s how we describe Prosthetic Records new signing, CREAK. Born in Newcastle, we welcome the quartet who are making quite a ruckus off the back of UK Tech-Fest and are set to release their debut album, Depth Perception.

Now to truly understand the weight this record holds we have to first uncover the backstory, taking a trip down memory lane and beyond as vocalist Jack Dunn opens up on the reality of this record and where its backstory lies. “When we did the EP it felt more like I was getting these emotions off my chest at the time. It wasn’t necessarily her being ill but the family issues around that time was just difficult for everyone – there was a lot of stress surrounding it all. There were moments on this album where I went back and viewed scenarios where perhaps I had been in the wrong. This record felt like the perfect time to capture these emotions I’ve held over the past four years and come to terms with its reality.” It’s apparent when you dissect some of the lyrical endeavours this record takes you on that it holds honest and raw truths shrouded in dark imagery and what we later find out to be hidden Easter eggs. But let’s dig deeper into CREAK‘s lair and find out what makes Depth Perception different in comparison to their debut, Bitter Picture?

It would appear from the get go Depth Perception already offers more experimentalism between the nu-metal KORN-esque guitar tones of Left To Heaven, and the erratic, cinematic tones of Doomed. It’s an interesting unique fusion of the old, familiar scent of the 90s with a modern twist that makes it refreshing. Though the writing process was less than ideal, it was a hellish concoction of technophobes, lockdowns and having to rewire their approach to songwriting; with guitarist Reece Boakes struggling the most to grasp the basics at first. Guitarist Patrick Morton divulges that the album was in its pre-production stages immediately upon dropping Bitter Picture in 2020, and this record took considerably longer since they had to learn how to send files back and forth, and write individually rather than at a practice room where they could bounce ideas off one another in the thick of the moment. In spite of the hardships it’s Dunn who reminisces that the lockdown allowed each of them to develop their craft and learn tricks.

“What would usually be a group writing process became everyone sending individual demos where we’d all learnt our own little tricks. Then when we finally got together for the last few songs everyone’s kinda going like ‘oh I’ll show you how to do this’ and all the tricks were thrown in.”

Though what appears to be the most captivating aspect of this new era is the cinematic edge inspired by David Lynch; whether that was through visuals or the feelings they wanted to convey across the course of thirty-six minutes. Dunn went onto reveal it was a painting in David Lynch: Someone Is In My House that he drew inspiration from as he recalls it was like “looking anxiety in the face”. This specific approach takes a different route down the horror theme that reigns popular among listeners; it doesn’t involve the theatrics, nor does it involve the retelling of true crime stories that make you go bump-in-the-night instead they aim for a more daunting, anxiety driven ride filled with dread and suspense. They wanted the aesthetics to match the tone of the record since this was a very serious, and emotionally heavy record, they didn’t want the gimmicks nor the humour.

However, it would appear the Silent Hill 2 video game became an integral part of their storytelling arc too, and something we could clearly see hit close to home for Dunn. “Silent Hill 2 was a big one for me because James spends the whole game looking for his partner who he thinks died from an illness – spoiler alert: turns out she didn’t. It felt like all that James was dealing with, and the way he presents himself and talks about it all matched up with the vibe (of Depth Perception). Obviously dealing with someone being ill puts pressure on people and sometimes you take that out on the people you love, or those who are closest. It’s unfortunate but sometimes that can be part of a process like that,”

A theme that very obviously carries itself through Restless Dreams, one of many Easter eggs Dunn has let slide, and though there appear to be more scattered, it’s up to us to broaden our minds and discover the rest.

Now whilst the next steps of CREAK remain nothing short of a mystery rest assured they’re aren’t far in fact they’re that gnawing feeling in the back of your mind when your alone, they’ll the shadows stretched out across your window at night, the whispers you hear coming from the attic and most importantly, that anxious pit in your stomach when you hear footsteps.

Depth Perception is out now via Prosthetic Records.

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