REVIEW: Cloud Rat/Disrotted - "Split LP"

By: Charlie Butler

Album Type: Split 12”

Date Released: 02/06/2017

Label: Dry Cough Records |

Halo of Flies

This is an awe-inspiring release from two incredible bands who can seemingly do no wrong at the moment and continue to deliver an embarrassment of heavy riches in 2017.

"Clout Rat/Disrotted" Split DD//LP track listing:

1). Cloud Rat– “Holding the Picture”

2). Disrotted– “Disrotted”

The Review:

Cloud Rat and Disrotted continue their intense 2017 release schedules with a killer split LP of contrasting styles. This split has come into being due to the strong bond between the two bands and while it may seem a strange stylistic pairing in theory it works a treat in practice.

Michigan’s Cloud Ratdepart from their usual format of short, sharp bursts of mayhem and deliver one eighteen minute monster. “Holding The Picture” begins in familiar territory, a whirlwind blur of chaotic screamo and relentless grindcore. The volume soon dips and the tempo decreases as the track develops into a slow-burning epic that smoulders with restrained power. This more melodic approach recalls Converge’s calmer moments delivered against a barren dustbowl backdrop reminiscent of Earth. It is a breathtaking achievement to create a beast of such sublime complexity and weighty emotional impact from the band’s minimal set-up of vocals, drums and guitar augmented only by occasional piano. This may not be Cloud Rat at their heaviest but they ably demonstrate that they lose none of their intensity and impact when they push their sound into quieter and more experimental realms.

Disrotted’s contribution to this split is twenty three minutes of slow-motion terror entitled “Disrotted”.  The Chicagotrio deal in a potent blend of Burning Witch / Monarch! style drone doom that creates maximum impact from minimal motion. Once the band launch into their sluggish, broken groove of feedback-drenched riffs and primal drums there is no escape from its dark density. The passage of time becomes irrelevant as they subject the listener to an experience that is crushingly bleak yet strangely soothing.

This is an awe-inspiring release from two incredible bands who can seemingly do no wrong at the moment and continue to deliver an embarrassment of heavy riches in 2017.

“Cloud Rat/Distrotted” is available here(UK/Europe) & (US/ROW) here

Band info: Cloud Rat || Disrotted