Rat King

I love concept albums, especially when they are done right. Larva is the second effort of the unconventional Rat King, who are (or should be) noted for their brilliant avant-garde industrialism. Their music can best be described as a mix of dark ambient, noise and industrial. Compared to their debut, Larva comes across as mightily ambitious and the scope of the album is lushly varied. The concept behind the album the effect of a man's dreams on his being; a difficult concept to play out without any visuals or vocals. Be that as it may, the key word here is atmosphere and there is a truckload of that. The great thing is that there's no "terror" overkill (i.e. Rat King don't try to be overly terrifying with their music). Even with varying from cavernous percussion to lush orchestration to occasional airy interludes of swirling ambience and stabbing discordance, Larva flows absolutely seamlessly.

Songs are untagged so here's the tracklist:

01 - Egg
02 - Hour Of The World
03 - The Duel
04 - The Wake
05 - Spiracle
06 - For Absent Gods
07 - Tranquility Lane
08 - Smorgasbord
09 - Vapour

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