Threshold

The more I listen to it, the more I'm convinced that Cloud Rat made the album of the year in the form of Threshold. A first timer for me since I never had a grindcore album grab me by the face in such a way before, not to such a scale. Why so? I ask myself. I've often enjoyed listening in to the genres' prodigal offspring; from Brutal Truth to Insect Warfare, Full of Hell to Wormrot to name some of the old and the new guard. However, I consider this album right here to be standing rather close to some of the scenes' classics, or at least it will be in the foreseeable future.

There's nothing missing, the distressing ambiences come and go, the guitarwork is phenomenal, the drums are much more eloquent than the frequent barbarisms of the grindcore kin, Madison Marshall's screeching on top of her lungs. Nothing is missing. I loved how Rorik Brooks' guitars are always contrasting brute force with some harmonic sensibilities, often throwing in a cunning run of the fretboard without sounding like an all over the place approach, but rather cold, diligent and calculated. I guess a similar conclusion could be drawn about Brandon Hill's drumming. It has got dynamic range and impeccable flow and it is orchestrated in such a way that it gives the album a sense of linearity, continuity and seamlessness. So apart from perhaps two, maybe three tracks that I feel are a bit closer to my personal tastes, I see no reason to be nitpicky with the record's tracklist and I almost always go for the albums full run, front to back. That's not to say that there's any need whatsoever to weed out the weaker tracks on this because I really can't find any of those. They're all great really, it's just that some are really great. I found myself dumbfounded at the blackened crust punk explosion in the midst of Imaging Order, the tearjerker that is Porcelain Boat, the crystalline composition of Kaleidoscope, the syncopated entrance to Corset and the shoegazing climaxes of Babahaz. These particular moments stand tall among fifteen monstrous tracks for me, truthfully relentless.

The colorful palette of the cover art may serve as a warning sign for the variety of auditory weapons in the Michigan based trio's arsenal, but there's no chance on earth anything could have prepared me for what is written on that lyric sheet. Without trying to downplay how great this album is, it was those lyrics that granted it that score. Those lyrics are perhaps that final but essential frontier that made me consider this probably is the best album this year. There are certain moments in there as well, too many to mention, that scratch a particular itch. A simple line that plants an image into your head, a moment of ambiguity, fragmented pieces of dialogue, all these placed in such a way that they hold weight. Despite meandering into abstract territory, every track feels like a statement without ever falling into the pitfalls of any detriment, neither rigid seriousness nor any sort of naivety transpires. Rather a suspended, sobering glance at such matters as solitude, identity, interpersonal relationships and how these always seem to be caught in a perennial war with each other, to the point where a descent unto delusion seems to be within reach.

I've loved this album on every listen and with every listen, a little more. Everything you'd wish to find on a grindcore record is here. Raw aggression, tints of death metal and crust punk, thrashing instrumentation, bursts of energy, whatever you'd wish to find, it's here. It's the vignettes of momentary sentimentality that render this truly great. And it's what's being said (or rather screamed and howled) that elevates it to being the most refreshing and surprising album this year.

Cloud Rat (pretty neat animal, don't know why I never looked up what their name was based off before) had a lot to live up to after their 2019 album Polinator. The album was still ripped with high octane vitriol, but they also padded out their sound with diverse influences and plenty of tempo changes. Cloud Rat's latest full length offering "Threshold" reminds me of Wormrot's new album in that they both had a lot to live up to at that point in their career and went ahead and made what is potentially their best album and certainly their most varied. I find it fitting that the album cover is a colourful kaleidoscope of swirling hues. There's a lot of different styles being thrown around here that somehow manage to claw their way together into a cohesive whole. Certain sections even come across as a ray of hope in their swirling sea of abrasive anguish. Despite their pace of dropping albums generally being a few years apart, if you look at their splits and whatnot, Cloud Rat is a very prolific band. They save the best for the main feature on Threshold with the album being a killer slab of unique grindcore.

Album opener "Aluminum Branches" opens with a brief dissonant dirge before sputtering into fiery hardcore-inflected grind. The song slows down at the end for us to be battered over the head with brutal sludge. This song is pretty indicative of Cloud Rat's approach on Threshold. They're still no doubt a grindcore act, but it's rarely as straight up rip n' grind as their older material. The grind is often imbued with other stylings, with beefier traditional hardcore, crust and even powerviolence leading the pack. There's still moments of pure grind, which are made even heavier by the fact that they're not playing at 100 all the time. One of the most interesting developments on Threshold is what sounds like the influence of dissonant black metal. It sounds like they've been listening to a fair bit of the school of black metal that came out of the Deathspell Omega sound. Serpent Column and the less laid back bands from the dissonant Icelandic scene come to mind. These parts often come in like swirling abrasive murk, adding a discordant and disorienting counterweight to the more straight ahead grindy hardcore riffage that occupies a fair bit of real estate on the album. There's a fair bit of dour sludge here, but I can also hear strains of Georgia sludge, which allows some bittersweet moments of optimism to muscle through the anguish.

Every good grindcore band needs a good vocalist, and Madison delivers. While she can prove to be quite versatile with some of her vocals almost stretching into black metal territory, she's at her best with her standard vocals here - a biting yell almost more indicative of crust than grindcore. She yells with fury and anguish, letting us know that while Cloud Rat may be branching out, they're still as pissed off as ever. While the riffs may be all over the place, the pacing and flow is immaculate. Rorik is just as comfortable leading a crushing sludgy dirge as he is playing balls to the walls. The easiest way to make an otherwise promising grindcore band bad is having a hack drummer. Thankfully Brandon (who also lends some occasional sparse electronics to the album) is no slouch. His playing is tight no matter how fast the band accelerates, and he throws in tons of creative fills.

Cloud Rat have to be one of the best grindcore outfits going right now, and show no signs of letting out. Hell, Threshold is an easy contender for their best album. They're tight as ever, have the best production they've ever had, have on-point songwriting and throw in a lot of different styles without it becoming a mess. Threshold may not be their absolute angriest, but it's the one that feels the most like a journey.