Full marks for perfect timing with that title. And that’s just the beginning.
Melbourne-raised, Brighton-based singer-guitarist and songwriter Suzie Stapleton also earns bonus points for dropping one of the most transfixing and terrifying debut albums to come along lately — a pitch-black, relentlessly intense collection of primal indie-rock and gothic post-blues fuelled by her exceptional bare-bones songwriting and topped with vocals that move from a husky haunted rasp to a shivery lament to a feverish force-of-nature howl. Once she worms her way under your skin, there’s no getting her out of your system.
THE PRESS RELEASE: “We Are The Plague is the debut album from Suzie Stapleton. It is a rallying cry, a howl into the abyss, the defiant call of a generation sold down the river and acutely aware of its own imminent demise — a bold soundtrack to the apocalypse. The album was recorded at OX4 Studios, produced by Stapleton and mixed by award-winning engineer Dan Cox (Thurston Moore, Laura Marling, Pete Doherty) at London’s Urchin Studios. Bassist Gavin Jay (Jim Jones Revue/Righteous Mind) and drummer Jim Macaulay (The Stranglers) provide a solid, seething backbone to Stapleton’s expressive guitar playing and midnight vocal traversing through alternative rock to gothic-blues through to alt-folk. Includes singles Thylacine and Blood On The Windscreen and nine previously unheard tracks including new arrangements and recordings of Negative Prophet and You Were There.”
