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Have you ever seen Stunt Rock? You’d remember if you did. The 1978 trash cinema is some kind of musical/action/mockumentary about an Aussie stuntman who arrives in L.A., meeting up with a relative who performs in a terribly confused band called Sorcery. It’s the band I want to talk about: theatrically adventurous though musically inept, it incorporates a King of the Wizard character who fights the Prince of Darkness during what’s to be considered the highlight of its show.
That brings us to New York’s Castle Rat. In the most superficial way possible, the band is a lot like Sorcery. So while it eats from the same side of the mystical buffet table, its taste level is infinitely higher. Having said that, if I told you that a bunch of medieval fantasy LARPers who were really into Black Sabbath decided to form a band and record a couple of albums, would you bet that it would be any good? No, me neither.
Well, dear reader, the shock of this preview is that while it started stealing shamelessly from the Ozzy/Iommi/Butler/Ward catalog, the group has branched out and started finding its own voice—and it’s quite decent. No doubt this has been honed via the understated vocals of the self-described “Rat Queen” singer/rhythm guitarist Riley Pinkerton, but fleshed out through the thoroughly realized concept and execution of some solid classic metal players. Granted, there’s not much here to call new (especially with the unrelenting late ’60s/early ’70s aesthetics), but tracks like “WOLF I” and “WIZARD” from the freshly released record The Bestiary still rock pretty hard. So you can take issue with the nerdy image, but you can’t get around those big, satisfying riffs.
