The banshee is folklore's most unwelcome houseguest, the wailing woman who turns up to announce a death in the family. Most bands who borrow her do so for a cheap Gothic shudder, a bit of dry ice and mascara. CREEPS treat her as a collaborator. The song has the unsettling hospitality of a ghost story told by someone who half believes it, and it never lets you settle into the comfort of a pastiche.

The guitars arrive heavy but not brutish, with the weight of a wet wool coat rather than a sledgehammer. They leave room for melody, and the melody is where the band keeps its real ammunition. Alternative metal has long confused volume with conviction, and the genre is littered with records that shout because they have nothing to whisper. This one knows the difference. The quiet passages carry real menace, the loud ones feel earned, and the transition between them is handled with a confidence that suggests a band playing from instinct rather than from a template.

The vocal is the song's rope bridge. It stretches between brooding restraint and full-throated alarm, and the singer crosses it without once looking down. Where lesser frontpeople would reach for theatrics, CREEPS reach for tension, and the payoff lands harder for it. The title phrase, when it finally arrives, is less a hook than a summons. You will be humming it on the bus and wondering why you feel faintly haunted.

The rhythm section deserves a pint and a lie-down. Drums and bass lock together with the grim precision of a rail timetable, driving the track forward while the guitars brood and swirl overhead. It is the sort of foundation you only notice when you try to imagine the song without it, at which point the whole structure folds like a deckchair.

Last year's "I Will Follow You" earned CREEPS a clutch of admirers, from the rock-radio enthusiasts of Latin America to indie blogs across Europe, and it was easy to hear why: a promising band with a fine instinct for atmosphere. "Cry of the Banshee" is the sound of that promise being cashed in. The writing is sharper, the production more assured and the ambition larger, and nothing in it feels forced. They have not abandoned their Gothic tendencies so much as given them better tailoring.

Being independent, of course, means doing it all the hard way, and a record this polished suggests a band that has learned every lesson the hard way too. No major-label gloss has been applied here, no focus-grouped chorus bolted on at the last minute. What you hear is a group of people in a Moravian rehearsal room who have decided that being unsettling and being catchy are not mutually exclusive, and who are right.

"Cry of the Banshee" was released on October 16. Play it loudly, play it after dark, and don't be surprised if the neighbours start asking who died.