Out today: CLOUD RAT - Pollinator

Cloud Rat's new album Pollinator is out today on Artoffact Records.

Stream the album and buy, here:
https://orcd.co/cloudratpollinator

More details, here:
http://thechainworld.blogspot.com/2019/07/cloud-rat-pollinator.html

"In a couple of key ways, Cloud Rat are what every grindcore band should be. Their music is inexhaustible, spasming through elaborate rackets of heaving riffs, spit-flecked vocals, and berserk percussion without ever slowing down. At the same time, there’s an atmospheric creep to their music that gives it a hard menace, adding that pinch of heavy metal darkness to what could easily just be a lot of noise and sweat. In this way, the Michigan three-piece give listeners both sides of what they want from furious music: the tooth-grinding rancor and the hand-kneading darkness, indivisible."
–Kerrang!

"'Pollinator' ironically plays more like a 30-plus minute multi-movement piece of music than a collection of short tracks... Cerebral metallic punk."
–Consequence of Sound

"The Michigan band is particularly adept at pivoting between churning, math-y riffs, pummeling brutality, and moments of real beauty, wringing catharsis from Madison Marshall’s bloodied-yet-unbowed howl all the while..."
–Bandcamp Daily

"Cloud Rat have a genuinely fresh, unique take on the genre... Even on their grindiest songs you can tell that Cloud Rat are experimentalists at heart."
–BrooklynVegan

"In September, Michigan trio Cloud Rat dropped Pollinator, the group's kaleidoscopic fourth full-length in a prolific 10-year career that has seen them also release 11 EPs and splits and a live album, as well as make numerous compilation appearances. Fusing elements of punk, grindcore, black metal and more into their furious, emotive sound, the band were recently tapped by curator Emma Ruth Rundle to play the 2020 edition of Roadburn, an ideal showcase for their forward-thinking, boundary-pushing oeuvre."
–Revolver

"Vocalist Madison Marshall presides over the controlled chaos, giving an absolutely blistering vocal performance. Each shriek is ferocious but measured, striking the balance between brutality and intelligibility. As always, Cloud Rat remain one of the tightest bands in their genre, turning on a dime with each change."
–Decibel

"One of the best records to come out of the heavy music underground this year. Speed and sonic ferocity are certainly the key musical elements of Cloud Rat’s massive output. But after ten years of constant composition and gigging, they do a lot more than pummel and spew. They play great songs."
–Dusted

"Cloud Rat is on a war path with their killer new album, Pollinator, and I can't say enough great things about it. If you're into grind that explores new realms of possibility, you owe it to yourself to check it out!"
–Metal Injection

"Cloud Rat’s forward-thinking grind has never failed to impress. Pollinator is by-and-large their quintessential effort, bringing everything they’ve accomplished thus far to the fore and imbuing it with sophistication and grace."
–MetalSucks

"With their formation nearly a decade ago, the Michigan band used grindcore as the medium to spread a message espousing personal and sociopolitical issues important to them... With the release of their fourth full-length, Cloud Rat continues this pattern of resolutely clinging to their beliefs while employing completely unorthodox ways to express them."
–Invisible Oranges

"Their most intense and blistering recording to date... the entire album plays like one continuous song."

–New Noise

"Running through snapped strings and sticks at a million miles a minute, Pollinator is beautiful and threatening in it’s most panic-inducing moments, while lavish and lurid in its more sickly sweet sections."
–Heavy Blog Is Heavy

"Michigan’s grindcore-slash-hardcore trio Cloud Rat harnesses their emotion with deadly precision, even emotions beyond the signature rage and aggression of their chosen subgenre. Melancholic post-metal melodies float wistfully alongside – and sometimes within – the pummeling grindcore blasting, adding a somber tone of reflection balanced against those lightning-tempo spurts of fury."
–Last Rites

"A constantly mutating blend of melodic hardcore, slowcore, post-black metal, and, of course, radioactive grind, Pollinator doesn’t use its blinker when changing lanes, and yet everything feels of a part, thanks to Madison Marshall’s desperate yalp and the band’s emphasis on dramatics at every turn in their exit-less interstate system."
–Free Williamsburg

"Cloud Rat seize the innovation of classic Discordance Axis and make it their own... This record is insanely brutal and unrelenting, yet within the limited framework of Grindcore, they are able to create music that is emotional, passionate."
–No Clean Singing

"Rather than a mere collection of chaotic songs, Pollinator is a true album – Cloud Rat have presented a curated journey that’s ambitious in scope and textured in such detail to put them more in spiritual league with artful black metal than the nihilist brutalism of your average grindcore band."
–Toilet ov Hell

"While Pollinator is certainly not meant to be an easy listen, either in terms of its abrasive sound or its reflections of a truly fucked-up society, it is a rewarding one... It’s a bracing and necessary listen, and a high-water mark for an already great year for hardcore."
–Treble

"The emotions dealt with include loss, depression, and more, and Pollinator provides an at times almost euphoric push through these torrents to another side."
–Captured Howls