The highlight of what has admittedly been a kind of crappy couple… well, let’s not get too depressing and call it at ‘weeks’ was the Carleton University College of the Humanities 30th anniversary weekend.
Photo by Thorarinn Torfason on Pexels.com
Incidentally, if anyone is interested in helping us start a College research internship program…
Part of that was the rather novel experience of actually meeting and talking to new people in a social setting. Usually, I just stand in a corner feeling bad about myself.
But, also, I got to reconnect with some of the people from the same graduating class as me.
The first even of the reunion weekend was a pub night and I was wearing my The Sword All Will Fall Tour t-shirt – which I bought on clearance back when the band announced they were breaking up in 2022.
They have since gotten back together.
Now, The Sword very much leans into the vintage Pulp Sci-Fi & Fantasy aesthetic…
…and seeing the shirt, one of my friends asked ‘Do you know the band Castle Rat?’
Admittedly, my first reaction was ‘Wait. Like Chris Pratt‘s band on Parks & Recreation?’
And, um, no. Not like that. They were Mouse Rat…
My friend went on explain that all of Castle Rat’s songs have names like ‘Dragon‘ and ‘Wizard‘ and a 70s vibe. And I pretty much admittedly agreed with him that yeah, that does sound like the sort of thing I’d like.
I looked Castle Rat up pretty much as soon as I got home and the first video that came up was Siren.
I haven’t done a really deep dive into the band yet, but I have listened to all of the songs that immediately came up when I searched them on YouTube and Siren probably is my favourite.
I’ve always felt like Heavy Metal is a genre plagued by too many adjectives, so I’m not entirely clear on how exactly a doom metal band is different from a stoner metal band – but although Wikipedia lists Castle Rat as the former and my understanding is that The Sword is primarily the latter, they are very musically similar.
Although none of the Castle Rat songs I’ve listened to so far go quite as hard or heavy as The Sword, they do have a similar style and feel straight out of the 70s. Of course, my read on the situation is that there is a decent amount of overlap between doom metal and stoner metal, so that’s not exactly surprising.
Musically, Castle Rat is absolutely a solid band. But they’ve also got a 12/10 aesthetic and visual style.
It probably does them a disservice to call their music videos ‘So Bad It’s Good‘ – but they are also clearly leaning into schlocky, pulpy, cheesy 70s Fantasy vibes.
I’ve known about the band for approximately 130 hours, so, naturally, I’ve never seen them live on stage, but Wikipedia does explain that they put on pretty elaborate shows that involve a whole Fantasy narrative, and each member of the band is portraying their own character – a warrior queen who’d be right at home on the cover of an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook, a Vampire, a druid, and a plague doctor.
It calls to mind Eurovision champions Lordi, albeit with less ornate, prosthetic-heavy costumes.
Also, Eurovision: we’re coming for you.
Circling back to the ‘So Bad It’s Good’ thing, as much as I’m hesitant to dish out a backhanded compliment, it’s also not entirely a bad thing. Schlock done well, or at least well enough to be entertaining is awesome.
I mean, hey, Krull is one of my favourite movies.
And Castle Rat is absolutely nailing the vibe of a cheesy, but also awesome 70s/80s Fantasy movie like Krull: the costumes, the hair, the obvious greenscreens, the kaleidoscope effects. Yes, it’s goofy, but Castle Rat is 1200% committed to the bit.
Anyway, here’s Siren – the song so good I added it to my playlist twice…
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