Saddled with an unsavory name, and offering up a mouthful of a title for their new album, Rats on Rafts are back. Excerpts From Chapter 3: The Mind Runs A Net Of Rabbit Paths, out on Friday via Fire Records, is a surprisingly listenable release, and one which will captivate those who've found the group's brand of art rock inaccessible in the past.
"A Trail of Wind and Fire" surges with an Ubu-like menace, while the catchy "Tokyo Music Experience" is like a neat mix of The B-52's and The Plastics. Elsewhere, "The Rise and Fall of the Plague" and "Another Year" obliquely, but loudly, clatter on about life in our pandemic, and the mental space that's put us all in , "Where is My Dream?" roars in the manner of peak stuff from The Pop Group. That one is a highlight here, as is the quieter "Fragments".
Rats on Rafts may have started Excerpts From Chapter 3: The Mind Runs A Net Of Rabbit Paths as a concept album but I'll be damned if I know what the concept is; Tommy this ain't. Still, what we've got here is the best release from this band yet, and a nice template for how to construct indie in the 21st century based upon the work of the post-punk and prog pioneers of the past.
Excerpts From Chapter 3: The Mind Runs A Net Of Rabbit Paths is out on Friday via Fire Records.
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[Photo: Erik Christenhusz]