Into The Realm

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Brooklyn's Castle Rat vociferously inhabit their dark medieval fantasy world. With alter egos, costumes, masks, and faceprint more elaborate than most doom metal tribes, they also have more than a passing familiarity with the riffage of forefathers Black Sabbath. Their debut album, Into the Realm was recorded, appropriately enough, in an abandoned church in Philadelphia with decaying plaster and stained glass windows. It has a potent, hammering crunch thanks to engineers Davis Shubs and Thomas Johnsen, and yet the sonic sludge which makes many metal recordings unlistenable away from their stage shows is kept to a minimum. The vocals of frontwoman and songwriter Riley Pinkerton (The Rat Queen) soar on "Feed The Dream" as she queries, "Feed the dream through the night/Can it bleed, will it writhe?/ Move thine mouth, give a sign/ Tear the shroud, may I rise?"  Her convincing delivery, complete with a fierce, pulsating vibrato reminiscent of Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick, keeps Into the Realm from being parody.  Lead guitarist Franco Vittore (The Count) has genuine chops and can rip off tight, cogent solos. When he digs into a riff on "Red Sands," supported by Josh Strmic's (The Druid) pounding drumming, the album shifts into a satisfying intensity. Featuring "Resurrector," basically a bass solo by Ronnie Lanzilotta (The Plague Doctor), as a separate track is a bold, and effective move.  On the appealing original ballad "Cry For Me," Pinkerton conjures horror film imagery as negotiates wily melodic turns, taking her time belting out lines like "There's a red horse pawing at the door/ In the hurricane of hands that I've ignored/ I split myself six thousand times/To give you each a piece, so I can never die." Never just sludge for sludge's sake, Castle Rat make a convincing case that these rodents truly do rule a kingdom. © Robert Baird/Qobuz