Review: Crippling Alcoholism – Camgirl

Style: Gothic rock, noise rock (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Swans, Chat Pile, The Cure, New Order
Country: United States
Release date: 12 September 2025

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “Claire, you seem so normal and well-adjusted, and definitely don’t show signs of alcoholism, depression, or any other concerning medical conditions!” 

Right. 

“Why are you writing about Crippling Alcoholism? Haven’t you ever heard of ‘write what you know’?” 

Indeed. For the record, you’re totally right. But sometimes an album just crawls under your skin, like a bad habit that feels too good to quit. And such is the case with Camgirl, the third album from Boston-based gothic noise rock outfit Crippling Alcoholism.

I’m not making a glib reference to the band’s name when I say that Crippling Alcoholism’s sound is addictive. Well, I am, but it’s also true that the album is littered with infectious melodies. With growing distance from the abstract noise rock and uncomplicated aggression of their earlier albums—think of a gothier Chat Pile—Camgirl places synths front and centre in Crippling Alcoholism’s sound. Blurrily imbued with an aesthetic that the band describe as “babygirl”, Camgirl is replete with glittering, feverish choruses that will linger in your head like something you vaguely remember from a dream. Imagine that you pulled Kraftwerk or New Order off the dancefloor, locked them in a sticky basement, and sucked the serotonin out of them. 

Camgirl’s concept centres on Bella Pink, a digital sex worker navigating a world of performance, consumption, and commodified intimacy. It’s a parcel of pleasure wrapped in self-loathing. Vocalist Tony Castrati’s bleary baritone gropes through this space, scraping raggedly across a grimy low range, a litany of profanities and confessions sliding loosely off his tongue. Meanwhile, backing vocals from bandmate Alyce Smith most often mirror Castrati in unison or octaves, functioning less as a harmony than as an echo chamber of guilt and self-revulsion. The lyrics, when they aren’t slurred beyond intelligibility, are dirty, sleazy, dripping with derision and shame: “Baby, I’m a god damn monster / I fucking hate the way I look / Yeah, I look like a fat fucking scumbag”, Castrati spits impotently over an unconscionably infectious pulse of 80s synths and drums in the chorus of “bedrot”. It’s brilliant how compulsively, squirmingly catchy these debased scenes are. Tell me you don’t start bobbing along to the magnetic chorus of “I’m just a user / Craving your abuse” in “CAMGIRL”. Though Camgirl also features vocal performances by members of Luxury Skin, Ameokama, and Latter, they’re somewhat underused. Only the wounded, raw outburst from Meredith Haines (Latter) on closing track “despair” leaves a lasting impression. 

Spacey instrumentations help fill in the world of Camgirl. Jonathan Jasperse’s synth work twinkles and spins overhead like the blur of lights through drunken eyes: pretty, mesmerizing, dizzy-making. Even in melodies as simple as the brassy synth tone at 1:45 in “Pay Pigs”, the synths are impossible to turn away from. Beneath them, the guitars and bass surface in a few standout moments like their warped, dreamy shimmer alongside the synths in the intro to “Pretty in Pink” or the bald thrum at the opening of “I Have a Key to Your House”. Sometimes the drums bulge against the edges of the lethargic melodies around them, pressing insolently forward with slapping snares, where elsewhere they skitter and slam across the album’s more fragmentary passages (“Pretty in Pink”, “I Have a Key to Your House”). Some tracks distractedly stumble to a close, trains of thought lost mid-idea, like they’ve had one too many themselves (“Mr. Sentimental”, “TARAVISTA”). At just over an hour, Camgirl does occasionally linger longer than it needs to, but even this bloat feels like part of the intoxication.

You need look no further than Camgirl’s cover—or its eye-melting hot pink Bandcamp page—to appreciate the self-awareness running through all that filth. Crippling Alcoholism might be drunk, but it’s not on their own Kool-Aid; Camgirl is sincere and dogged without ever feeling like the diary of a sad teenager. It’s the kind of record that makes you want to take a shower afterwards: it gets under your skin and won’t wash off. It’s pleasure and disgust, gothic rock and synth-pop, all tangled together in a sweaty, depressive mass. Like any good addiction, it leaves you wanting just one more hit.

Recommended tracks: bedrot, CAMGIRL, Pretty in Pink
You may also like: Vexagon, Revenge Body
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Portrayal of Guilt

Crippling Alcoholism is:
– Tony Castrati (vocals)
– Danny Sher (drums)
– Jonathan Jasperse (synthesizer, keyboards)
– Peter Mirata (bass)
– Stefan Iglesias (guitar) 
– Alyce Smith (guitar, vocals)
With guests:
– Juliet Gordon (vocals)
– Aki McCullough (vocals)
– Meredith Haines (vocals)