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ALBUM REVIEW
- Rat King - Larva
- Roadcrew Records
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- Rat King are the second of our bands
this issue from Indian label Roadcrew Records, and it’s another winner, although very
different to rostermates Blind Image. “Larva”
is the project’s second album, and continues the style which originated on debut “The Plague of Hamelin” – an
arresting blend of industrial anguish, ambient gloom and sheer metallic aggression that
steps boldly between the starkly-drawn boundaries of genre, summoning a harsh but
expressive atmosphere that is as much shape and place as sound.
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- In listing influences, Rat King focus
as avidly on film (Lynch, Bergman, Tarkovsky) as they do on music (Ministry, Morricone,
Burzum), and this translates to an excellent sense of drama and scene-setting in their
sound. “For Absent Gods” is a great
example of this, its long composition looping through spooling ambience, creepy beats,
machine gun drum programming and finally a clanking, shambling metal rhythm without losing
coherence, a related series of worrying, difficult episodes. “Smorgasbord” is more varied again,
contrasting the crashing of heavy machinery with warm, classical guitar, but, as with the
shock of industrial black metal against the strings of “Hour of the Wolf”, the overall
impression is of suspense and an unfolding dynamic, not of confusedness.
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- The schizophrenic instrumentation
does occasionally get the better of the band, but in the main part it is vital to
providing the big, imposing themes in which it is so easy to get deliciously lost, as on
the rich, rampaging and even symphonic “The
Wake”. The intensity of some of the drum programming is startling, but works well
to provide the mental unease for which Rat King strive, quickening the blood with its
aggression as a juxtaposition to the more brooding, cinematic tracks such as “Spiracle”. “Larva” sometimes has the catchy,
driving nature of, for example, Killing Joke, but it is also unafraid to wend its way down
darker, slimier industrial paths into a distinctly cold and unpleasant ambient mode.
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- Rat King certainly have the courage
of their convictions, and whilst they don’t make things purposefully easy for the
listener, they do provide a multitude of aural handholds to which the mind can cleave on
its ascent up their remarkably creative slopes. For those on the weirder, more belligerent
side of the mountain, this is an unusual new treat, and is very much worthy of your time.
- 80/100
- Ellen Simpson
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- www.myspace.com/raatkeeng
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