Album Review: Castle Rat – “Into the Realm” (Doom/Trad Metal)

Written by Kirk

Somewhere deep in the heart of Brooklyn stands a lonely hill, lost and forgotten to the annals of time.  At the top of this hill and surrounded by a nigh-impenetrable forest and fog so thick you could lose your hand is a castle, its walls eternally wet and covered with moss.  Though the walls seem on the brink of collapse and the floors look as though they could give way at any second, it remains as sturdy now as it was the day it was built, a testament to the hands that raised it oh, so long ago.  And while no human has walked its halls in more years than anyone could ever hope to guess, there is one being who calls it home.  She is the Rat Queen, and, for the first time in years, she is about to leave her nest….

For two long years she’s been plotting with her cohorts the Count, the Druid, and the Plague Doctor to expand her realm.  Too long she has sat in that cold, dark castle, alone but for her constant cohorts who swore fealty long, long ago.  Her strength is at its peak, and woe to any man, woman, or child who would dare to stand in her way.  For she is coming, and there is not one single thing any of us can do to stop her.

Into the Realm, the debut album from Brooklyn’s Castle Rat, is a bit of an oddity.  From the opening notes of “Dagger Dagger” through the thunderous riffs of “Nightblood”, it feels both like something you’ve never heard before and instantly comforting and familiar at the exact same time. Riley Pinkerton (known here as The Rat Queen), who is the band’s vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and songwriter, conjures an elaborate musical journey of mythical proportions set in a fantastical realm of medieval swords and sorcery.  Led by the Iommi-esque riffs of lead guitarist Franco Vittore (The Count), thunderous bass lines of Ronnie Lanzilotta III (The Plague Doctor), and measured chaos of Josh Strmic‘s (The Druid) drumming, they are here to remind us that there are an abundance of ways to make what could be your run-of-the-mill Sabbath Worship™️ and make it utterly captivating.

As vocalists go, it’s hard to do better than Riley.  She manages to capture both the dynamic bombast of trad metal stalwarts like Black Sabbath and Cirith Ungol and the agonized longing of doom metal luminaries like Candlemass and Scott Reagers-era Saint Vitus. Immensely versatile, her voice can make your blood start to boil in a berserker rage with “Feed the Dream” or bring a tear to your eye with “Cry for Me”.  Her delivery is nothing if not captivating, but it is only one facet that makes Castle Rat so compelling. In the interplay between Franco’s blazing leads and Riley’s harmonies, it becomes difficult to tell where one part begins and the other ends, reminiscent of the dynamic between Television’s Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd.  And it’s the bedrock of the rhythm section that makes it all so compelling, anchoring the soaring highs of the guitar wizardry in the crushing emotional depth of epic doom courtesy of Ronnie and Josh.

Into the Realm is also wonderfully balanced, like that of an old expertly-crafted longsword from a master blacksmith.  It spaces the five full-length songs apart with four short but poignant instrumental breaks, allowing the listener for maximum mood shifts throughout the full 32:54 runtime.  And while these roughly thirty minutes seems an awfully short amount of time for a doom record, the pacing of each song as well as the placement of each instrumental break allow for maximum immersion into the listening experience. You will find yourself being drawn into the story again and again and again, unable to resist reliving each and every encounter on the Rat Queen’s quest to defeat the Rat Reaperess (who is actually played onstage during live performance by a fifth, non-musical member of the band: Madeline Wright) and defend her realm from invasion.

THE BOTTOM LINE

So, are Castle Rat going to take the world of heavy metal by storm in an epic sword fight and escape into the dense, heavy fog with the coveted “Album of the Year” superlative to tag onto Into the Realm?  Maybe they will, and maybe they won’t. That’s really not up to me. What they’re doing with their particular brand of Sabbath Worship™️ isn’t anything we haven’t heard before; in fact, they’re treading waters that have been crossed for just a little over half a century.  When you get water from the same well over and over and over again, the bucket comes up with just a little less each time. But it’s not really about how much water you get as it is what you do with it, and that’s what sets Castle Rat apart from their contemporaries.  Into the Realm is imaginative and fun, which is just the kick in the pants that most metalheads so sorely need.  The band went so far as to record this album over the course of several days in a dilapidated and possibly haunted church in Philadelphia, which sounds pretty damn heavy metal to me. The least you could do is pick up a copy of the album and give it a spin. Methinks you’ll enjoy it.