Michigan-based grindcore cult heroes CLOUD RAT return with Pollinator, the band’s most intense and blistering recordings to date. The trio has just revealed a new track called “Webspinner” and you can check it out below, along with an amazing artwork and more details!
Over the past ten years, Cloud Rat has established itself as one of the most compelling bands in the underground. Over a staggering number of releases – four full-length albums, eleven EPs and splits, a live album, and various other comps, in one decade – the Michigan band has made a name for itself via sheer emotion and musical freedom.
NPR Music called Cloud Rat’s 2013 album, Moksha:
“a feral, fearsome and fearless piece of work.” Noisey described a live show in 2015 with these words: “Cloud Rat is one of those rare bands whose music connects instantly, painfully – you feel the words, the the riffs, and the all-consuming cacophony deep within the marrow of your bones, vibrating out into a hostile world. “
Emerging from the space where hardcore punk spirals into grindcore, Cloud Rat is that and so much more. The band knows no limits and incorporates influences from across the map – black metal, noise, doom, goth, folk, and beyond – all while retaining its realness and urgency.
Cloud Rat guitarist Rorik Brooks describes the new album:
“Pollinator is our most complete and accomplished work yet. It is the quintessence of everything we’ve tried to say and do before, and it’s kind of fitting that we are coming up on a decade of being a band together.”
From Track One onward, Cloud Rat lunges forth and never lets up. Ripping and heartfelt, the sound bears traces of various legendary bands that have dealt in white-knuckle intensity and epic melody – Discordance Axis, His Hero Is Gone, and Darkthrone, to name three – but this music is entirely Cloud Rat’s own. Emotion bleeds through every note and anguished scream, and the entire album plays like one continuous song. Brooks states, “The goal was to have the album feel like a story that unfolds as you listen, spiraling deeper but then ebbing and flowing as it goes.”
Brooks, drummer Brandon Hill, and vocalist Madison Marshall captivate from start to finish – each member’s performance is strummed, beaten, and belted out with conviction. Underneath the grind, dark synths swell, adding an extra dimension of heaviness.
Brooks discusses the album’s lyrics:
“The lyrics touch on traumas and memories, relationships and communication problems, as well as the brutality of our society and the world in general. I’d say that our mission is to connect with people and make them feel something, and hopefully inspire folks to exercise their minds a bit too. I think music is magick, and it’s always interesting to cast little spells out there and see what happens, how music can affect others’ moods and imaginations and thoughts.”
As a companion piece to Pollinator, Cloud Rat has devoted an entire EP to its more experimental leanings: Artoffact will release Do Not Let Me Off the Cliff as the second disc in a 2-CD digipak version of Pollinator.
Pollinator was recorded and mixed by JC Griffin and Rorik Brooks at Lakebottom Recording House in Toledo, Ohio. Do Not Let Me Off the Cliff was recorded and mixed by Brooks at his home studio, The Overlook. The music was mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege. The artwork and layout were created by Renata Rojo.
Cloud Rat has toured the world, including runs with with peers such as Thou, False, and Wolves in the Throne Room. Upcoming 2019 shows include September dates with Artoffact Records labelmates Kælan Mikla.
Pollinator tracklist:
1) Losing Weight
2) Delayed Grief // Farmhouse Red
3) Seven Heads
4) Night Song
5) Wonder
6) The Mad
7) Al Di La
8) Last Leaf
9) Zula
10) Biome
11) Webspinner
12) Luminescent Cellar
13) Marionettes
14) Perla
Do Not Let Me Off the Cliff tracklist:
1) Thrust
2) Keep Flies
3) Share
4) 623
5) The Portal of God Is Nonexistence
6) Pity Sex
7) Dropping from Trees
Cloud Rat, live:
Aug 30 – Chicago IL @ Scorched Tundra Fest
Sep 2-Sep 8 – US tour w/ Kælan Mikla
Sep 13 – Baltimore, MD @ Metro Gallery w/ Pig Destroyer
Sep 14 – Hudson, NY @ Basilica Soundscape
May 2020 – Baltimore, MD @ Maryland Deathfest
Lineup: Madison Marshall – vocals; Rorik Brooks – guitar, keyboards, samples; Brandon Hill – drums
Discography:
• Cloud Rat – 2010, IFB Records, Otherwise Dead Records, Midwestern Decline Records
• Split w/ Xtra Vomit – 2010, Life Like Records / 2011, IFB Records
• Split w/ The Oily Menace & Wolbachia – 2011, IFB Records, Blackhouse Records
• Split w/ Autarkeia – 2011, IFB Records
• Fever Dreams – 2011, Grindcore Karaoke
• Split w/ Republic of Dreams – 2012, IFB Records, React With Protest Records, Moment of Collapse Records, 50 Year Storm Records
• Monomaniac – 2012, Blastbeat Mailmurder Productions
• Moksha – 2013 – Halo of Flies Records, IFB Records, React With Protest Records, 7 Degrees Records
• Split w/ Orgullo Primitivo – 2014, IFB Records
• Blind River – 2014, self-released
• Qliphoth – 2015, Halo of Flies Records, IFB Records, React With Protest Records, Moment of Collapse Records, 7 Degrees Records
• Split w/ Drugs of Faith – 2015, Selfmadegod Records
• Discography 2010-2015 – 2016, Dead Tank Records, Moment of Collapse Records, Absolute Contempt Records, Here and Now! Records
• Split w/ Crevasse – 2017, Halo of Flies Records, Contraszt! Records
• Split w/ Moloch – 2017, Halo of Flies Records, Feast of Tentacles Records
• Split w/ Disrotted – 2017, Halo of Flies Records, Dry Cough Records
• Blightseed w/ The World Is A Vampire – 2018, IFB Records, Feast of Tentacles Records
• Split w/ Test – 2018, Moment of Collapse Records, Dead Tank Records, Laja Records, 255 Records
• Clipped Beaks / Silk Panic MMXVII – 2018, Dead Tank Records, Moment of Collapse Records
• Pollinator – 2019, Artoffact Records
