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Ok,
I’ll be frank. With recordings like Larva, I may not be
the most objective critic mind. I suck at describing its
abstract qualities and I am just as bad at comparing and
linking experimental music like this to the artists de
rigueur that have blazed the trail. That’s mostly
because I do not know who these artists de rigueur are.
Music like this has never been something I’ve chased
after. Let’s say, we have never connected at a deep
level, which is not the same thing as saying that I am
incapable of liking it or enjoying it.
When writing
about bands with a span of sound this wide and grading their
artistry I go for an extremely rudimentary rating method; I ask
myself one question, 'can I listen to it all the way through
without, a) falling asleep and/or, b) getting annoyed?' If the
answer is affirmative, I give it a good grade. If I can’t stand
it, I consider it a piece of shit. Ahem, sounds pretty lame,
doesn’t it?
I know this
much. Rat King is a two-piece experimental/ambient/industrial
music project based in Chennai, India. Both musicians come from
a death metal background, which can be clearly heard in some
passages of Larva and which subliminally infects the whole
recording. Even those moments of Eastern (the bio calls them
‘tropical’) tones have that metallic spirit that is present all
over ambient music. What is outstanding about Larva is how each
song stands on its own and is clearly demarked by an end and
yet, how Larva in the end comes together and doesn’t seem like a
disparaging experience.
‘Cause with
music like this the danger is ending up with an album that sounds like
an awkward hodgepodge of broken ideas. On “Hour of the Wolf”
Rat King attach themselves to the most common denominator and
flatten everything in sight with a mixture of black metal and
industrial music. The angle is futuristic, the guitars are
killer. “the Duel” is eerie. Like an African tribe that just
woke up in a space ship and went for a stroll through its
compartments, the song is a journey of discovery. “The Wake” has
more power and drive. To Rat King’s credit the drums sound
organic and the rest of the music is dramatic and cinematic.
Larva is like a soundtrack to Alien. What’s not too
futuristic sure is uncomfortable, like germs that slowly develop
through the crevices, these rodents are magnifying the sounds of
the reality we don’t want to face.
MySpace
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