September 7, 2025
Castle Rat rules the Realm
From the dopey, smoke filled mires and deep dark forests of heavy metal cometh Castle Rat. I had the chance to catch them live at Montreal’s Piranha bar this past Sunday. And what an evening it was!
My mind was immediately impressed by their dedication to spectacle. Led by Riley Pinkerton aka the Rat queen, The Count, The Druid and the Plague Doctor begin setting up the stage for an epic performance.
See Also: Descendents at Metlus, Montreal
The crowd, in its anticipatory state, watched as props and preparations were carefully placed by the band. The whole time, I kept thinking how fortunate we were to see them up close, in a small venue, able to glimpse ‘’behind the magic’’, so to speak. I think it’s fair to surmise that by the next time they come around, a larger venue might be in order and maybe they’ll have minions setting up their occult rituals. Their finely tuned image and elaborate theatrical displays oozed with the professionalism of a well oiled, metal machine.
However, before Castle Rat took the stage, the road was properly paved by Burning Sanction, a local band from the greater Montreal area and Faerie Ring, a high powered stoner experience from Evansville, Indiana. Burning Sanctuary brought us some dark and heavy monastic vibes while Faerie ring, an incredible discovery for me, was like running through dusty mountain paths at 200 kilometers an hour, flipping and spinning all the way to your final destination. A perfectly balanced line-up.
Castle Rat closed the evening with traditional yet inventive stoner bangers, accompanied by surprisingly cool, narrative-driven interventions involving Maddy Wright, the band’s fifth member, who incarnated the entity known as the Nemesis, enthralling the crowd in an epic, sexy battle that could have been torn from the pages of 1970s Heavy Metal magazines. Prediction: Big in Japan status for Castle Rat is inevitable. Just saying!
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Though each metal genre attracts a different crowd, Castle Rat has placed itself in the vanguard of a new and more diverse generation of young headbangers. I’m looking forward to hearing their upcoming release, The Bestiary, and seeing how they evolve within the trappings of fantasy metal.
Castle Rat is currently on an extensive North American tour. If you can, go see them. You will not be disappointed.
