Premiere: Rat Punch – “Riff City”
This is the kool-aid they warned you about drinking.
Ok, so close your eyes and imagine you’re one of those rich, Silicon Valley types that thinks taking ayahuasca is a good shortcut to enlightenment. You charter a private jet down South America way, paid in bitcoin, with your investment banker bros for the all-inclusive rich-gringo-ripoff package, and you all gag down the brew of your Burning Man festival-endorsed shaman and spirit-guide. And right as you start to feel something coming on, the old native looks you dead in the eyes and starts laughing maniacally. You just bought the ticket, time to take the ride — straight to Alice in Wonderland’s PTSD nightmares. You just had your first taste of Rat Punch.
If you happen to fit the description above and/or love to wax poetic about lofty corporate values and the value-add of your company’s core principles and true north, then stop reading — right now. In fact, please close the tab with TovH and wipe your browser history then ignite your computer to make sure you never stumble around these parts again. “Riff City”, the second single off Rat Punch’s forthcoming album It’s a Drink wasn’t written for you. It was written about you.
True to the band’s name, the song is about the hollow meaninglessness behind the daily rat race. The song is a slogging mid-paced sturm und drang of riffs, both the guitar and the “I hate my boss” kind. If that sounds a bit vanilla to you, then remember that this is a band of (presumably) coherent individuals that chose to name itself “Rat Punch”. The song has maybe the weirdest (in a good way) guitar solo I’ve ever heard on a grindcore track; it sounds like an epileptic theremin on speed. And the singer delivers his anti-work screed in a rattish snarl that sounds like Dave Mustaine drunk and shouting from the back of a police car after a whiff of helium. Even for well-tread topics like “fuck this job”, Riff City stands out as a reminder that your comfort zone has never been what grindcore is about.
If you like your extreme music experiments cooked up by (out of?) mad scientist lab rats, check out the video for “Riff City” below. And keep your third eye peeled for It’s a Drink, which drops October 15th.
