Review: “Santa Hipocresía” by Rat King

After 2020’s well received album “Vicious Inhumanity” the inevitable return of Death/Grind trio Rat King was only ever a matter of time, the band having released new material almost every year since 2014’s “1564“. Setting the title “Santa Hipocresía” (or “Holy Hypocrisy“) for their next chapter, Danny Racines (Bass, Vocals), Ricardo Racines (Guitar, Noise) and Carlos Delgado (Drums, Backup Vocals) recorded at Soundhouse in Seattle with Wyatt Harbaugh before passing mixing to The Pit Recording Studio and Taylor Young (Drain, Section H8) and mastering to Audiosiege and Brad Boatright (Creeping Death, Pupil Slicer) with the promise of breakneck speed and death…

…and make no mistake, in this raw fusion of Death Metal and Grindcore that is exactly that Rat King do as they unleash hell upon your eardrums. Think “Schizophrenia” era Sepultura or “Altars Of Madness” era Morbid Angel and you’ve got a pretty good handle on the kind of sound that the trio have paid homage to, not only with this EP but in their career to date. Rather than being a band of two parts, they combine the two styles like a parasite and host, interweaving busts of Grindcore into their Death Metal offering like a Black Metal outfit does with blast beats in their melodies. The result of that is an artillery shelling of percussive battery with a clean crisp drum sound and razor sharp barbed riffs galore from start to finish. “Maldición del Alma” packs a menacing punch before the whirlwind of “False Prophet” hits like a sucker punch with a knuckle duster that you simply didn’t expect but it’s the Groove laden Death Metal of “Morboso” and the EP title track that win the day as on the longer cuts the trio get more expansive with intricate leads that are like a page from the Skeletal Remains playbook. “Morboso” in particular offers up some decent Death Thrash riffs that put a whole new dimension on where Rat King are going and you simply can’t resist headbanging and screaming along after a few listens. “Killing Art” brings the house down on the physical editions with a haunting quality and some waltzing riffage to accompany the skull battering percussion as Rat King take to flight for the kind of onslaught upon which names are made and graves are dug [8/10]

Track listing

1. Santa Hipocresía
2. Maldición del Alma
3. False Prophet
4. Morboso
5. Killing Art

“Santa Hipocresía” by Rat King is out 10th December 2021 via Within The Mind Records with pre-orders available over at bandcamp