Castle Rat – The Bestiary (Truly Great Fantasy Doom)
I was never a fan of Castle Rat before and after the hype. This wasn’t to say I didn’t enjoy what they did, I just didn’t see the greatness, or rather no one else noticed the greatness wasn’t there yet. We all need to be honest about that. Great style, great concepts, great ability, but a lack of form and real substance. Classic old school heavy metal in the vein of the 1970s style Cathedral started decades ago? Yep, been there enough. Takes some real magic to stand out. For Castle Rat, their previous work was, again let’s be honest, a diesel-charged skinny dip into retro doom with fantasy. That’s enough for some people, but not for this guy. Now, I’ll admit, I definitely bought a shirt related to their first full-length, but that’s because the design got it. The music, definitely not, but now, the band has shed its skin of mimicry so I can wear that mantel of greatness with pride.
The Bestiary sharpens the band’s theatrical style into a razor-edged sword. In fact, it’s a goddamn experience, let me tell you, like a dungeon crawl in a biker bar where belief in the spirit world still reigns supreme. The music itself is gloriously tactile with velvety guitars, the bass rumbling like a portcullis on the rise, and drumming built for torchlit halls of old. Of course, let’s not deny it, lead Riley Pinkerton is definitely the biggest draw of Castle Rat, but for all her fashion sense, and what appears genuine humility, its her voice that matters most. The self-proclaimed “Rat Queen” knows how to stalk the listener, delivering incantations, taunts, and hooks that can freaking soar. With all these details, the journey they take you on in The Bestiary reads like high fantasy without the imitating that spoils so many bands of this type. With their simplistic titles setting the stage, such as “Crystal Cave,” the user is taken on a journey, with which even the most playtested of AD&D modules can’t compare. Creatures, vistas, curses, take it all in and feel the fog creep, with flashes of steel breaking the haze to the flickering of candles. The live pageantry Castle Rat is known for isn’t merely a personal experience, ornamenting rather tame approaches to fantasy doom on stage, its there, in the sound, where, finally, the camp never swallows the craft. They’re not reinventing what they do, they’re proving the old spells remain the most potent, and its the human imperfections in the middle that make it so.
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Castle Rat – The Bestiary
King Volume Records
Cover Art: Chris Allison
4.7 / 5
