Castle Rat get medieval on theatrically doomy debut 'Into The Realm'
Like a battered cassette tucked into a forgotten box of teenage ephemera along with a velvet pouch of twelve-sided di, a sticky Castlevania NES cartridge, a dogeared dirty magazine, and some dried up leftover weed Castle Rat emerges from the darkness with their debut LP Into The Realm; an atmospheric bruiser that fully embraces the down-tuned stylings of doom metal with a forward-thinking reverence and a knowing theatricality that injects fresh vigor into the medieval miasma.
Into The Realm quickly establishes its tone without hesitation. The atmosphere in this dungeon is thick and musky, filling the lungs with an organic presence and lurking upon the tongue with the metallic tang of rusting iron and stale blood. Delving deeper into the blackness the stones themselves begin to sing, howling with spectral cries long exorcised from the mortal plane and damned forever to haunt the unending labyrinth of catacombs and chambers. Here in the dark the stillness itself is alive with powerful energies ancient and terrible, pressing against the perpetual subterranean gloam to possess unwary souls who dare trespass beneath the sacred barrow.
At the core Into The Realm’s heavy metal chug is more Pentagram than Black Sabbath, foregoing polished production in favor of an underground approach that imbues the album with a tangible density. Building upon the traditional tenets of the genre by incorporating hallmarks of doom, glam, and folk Castle Rat conjure an alchemical take on the familiar. Where contemporaries like Kadavar and Windhand are committed to composing deadly serious fuzzed out dirges, Castle Rat’s approach is comparatively light while operating within similar sonic territory, embracing absurdity and authenticity in equal measure to incredible affect.
Into The Realm is delivered in movements, constructed around an arrangement of Stonehenge-like pillars taking the form of a series of substantial slabs of metallic doom. Brief vignettes occupy the spaces between like glittering ornaments affixed to a battle hardened cuirass, expanding Castle Rat’s vocabulary without diluting the album’s overall potency. Operating at full power the band’s predilection for impressively crunchy riffs is apparent throughout, matched only by their uncanny ability to temper that electric fire with rhythmic grooves conjured from the deepest recesses of the void itself. “Dagger Dragger” and “Feed The Dream” pack a wallop, opening Into The Realm with seismic impunity and undeniable magnetism reflected later in the album on the menacingly carnal “Fresh Fur”. The sprawlingly epic “Red Sands” covers an impressive amount of territory, drawing elements from nearly every track on the album into a bubbling cauldron of druidic mysticism that boils over with primordial fury.
Standing out amidst the din, “Cry For Me” features a spartan arrangement of guitar and subtle percussion leaving plenty of space for an impressive vocal performance from the Red Sonja channeling Rat Queen herself, Riley Pinkerton. Brilliantly emotive and decidedly 21st Century in its themes, the track manipulates the gothic undercurrent of heavy metal into a powerful ballad of rebirth in the wake of absolute destruction. While still completely enveloped in umbral ominousness, “Cry For Me” offers a glimmer of hope within the dark as the earliest rays of spring begin to stir winter’s frozen corpse from it’s deathly slumber.
For all their costumed exhibitionism, Castle Rat packs some irrefutable muscle. Into The Realm is proof-positive that the band has concocted a compelling combination of style and substance, with a strong focus on the latter that make this a promising first entry in the band’s burgeoning heroic saga.
Into The Realm is available now via Bandcamp. Stream the album on Spotify and follow Castle Rat on Instagram.
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