Sunday 11 December 2022

Rat Beat

Back in 2018, Bridge Nine released a 7" by a new band called Beach Rats. A new band made up of old dudes and a 7" with a cover that looked like a tattoo, I had zero interest in checking them out. Well, fast forward four years and they released a full length titled 'Rat Beat' and for some reason I fancied checking it out... and pretty much instantly I loved it. I guess it's not surprising given who is in the band that it would be catchy, but it's kinda funny that originally I dismissed this. The band features Brian Baker (Minor Threat, Dag Nasty, Bad Religion), Ari Katz (singer of Lifetime) and two dudes from The Bouncing Souls.

This was released by Epitaph and probably because it's a smaller band on the label, it 'only' came on four colours of vinyl. I wasn't too excited by the colours available in Europe, so I went after clear, which is one of the two US colours. As ever, clear looks great.

This really is a very catchy record. There are 12 songs and they are all done in 22 minutes, which in my mind is the perfect length for a record. The songs are short and fast but also have melody and audible lyrics that you can sing along to. It's a really fun record. But given the members are all in other bands, I'm curious as to how much they will play out live.

Anyway, this of course now means that I will now need to track down that 7" that I chose to ignore four years ago like a fool.

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