The RAT BOY gang have been all over the world, but there’s no place like home. And with today’s release of their new album ‘SUBURBIA CALLING’ they present stories inspired by their Essex heartland – but also capture a microcosm of British culture that’s reflected right across our green and sometimes pleasant lands.
‘SUBURBIA CALLING’ opens with the band’s new single ‘MOB MENTALITY’ which neatly sums up the range of influences that bristle throughout the subsequent set. Bouncy two-tone 2.0 rhythms spark up the energy levels, before bursting into scrappy punk-meets-Britpop energy for its hook. And what typifies small town British life more astutely than the eternal conflict between restless youth and their curtain twitching middle-class, middle-market tabloid reading elders?
RAT BOY vocalist/guitarist Jordan Cardy explains, “MOB MENTALITY was a last minute addition to the album and teaser of things to come. I think it sums up what are sound is. Energetic punk ska Brit whatever writing about what we know. I think this is my favourite off the record I think it’s important for the first track of an album to set the tone of the rest of the album.”
From ‘MOB MENTALITY’ onwards, RAT BOY bring the noise and rarely let up, whether they’re contrasting sweet ska rhythms with a thumping punk hook on ‘RUDY’S WORLD’ or transporting us back to the early 2000s indie-pop heyday with ‘BEST IS YET TO COME’. There are more audacious moments too such as the vaudevillian, Madness-tinged ‘BOY WONDER’ and ‘ESSEX LAND’, an unofficial county anthem that sounds like a brilliantly riotous cross between ‘Parklife’ and the ‘Only Fools And Horses’ opening theme tune.
Jordan adds, “I wanted to sing about Essex. It’s where we live and when you’ve grown up somewhere you notice things about it. There’s so much to draw on. Essex is really close to London but it’s different in a lot of ways. We’ve got a lot of freedom here, we built a place where we can record and rehearse and hang out, somewhere you wouldn’t be able to have in London. I wanted to write about Essex and England, our early songs were like that but I hadn’t written like that in a while. It felt like a good time to write about Essex again.”
Also including the recent singles ‘ONE IN A MILLION’, the title track, ‘BAD MAN’ and ‘SHE’S THE ONE’, the album was shaped by two key creative approaches. This is the first album in which RAT BOY is officially a band rather than Jordan’s solo project. And band members Liam Haygarth (bass), Harry Todd (guitar) and Noah Booth (drums) douse the songs with their characteristically frenetic performances, which the storied producer Stephen Street (Blur, The Smiths) then edited together with demo recordings to give the album a raw energy without compromising its finesse.
Out now digitally, physical copies of ‘SUBURBIA CALLING’ are available on black vinyl, picture disc vinyl and CD from Hellcat Records’ store HERE.
‘SUBURBIA CALLING’ is the third RAT BOY album after the UK Top 15 debut ‘SCUM’ and the punk/hip-hop anarchy of the follow-up ‘INTERNATIONALLY UNKNOWN’, which saw them work with Rancid / Operation Ivy legend Tim Armstrong and tour North America with The Interrupters.
‘SUBURBIA CALLING’ tracklist:
- “MOB MENTALITY”
- “RUDY’S WORLD”
- “ONE IN A MILLION”
- “BEST IS YET TO COME”
- “EVERY LITTLE HELPS”
- “SUBURBIA CALLING”
- “BADMAN”
- “SHE’S THE ONE”
- “ESSEX LAND”
- “HANDBAGS AT DAWN”
- “DAY TRIP TO LONDON”
- “BOY WONDER”
- “TAKE MY PLACE”
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