Rat Mass — Ryan Taylor and Mitchell Sosebee — is a fairly mysterious, and emerging American metal duo, who frequently improvise to create heavy music with elements of ambient music and noise. The duo released their latest album Time Pulls The Trigger earlier this month, and the album’s first single, the PJ Harvey-meets-Chelsea Wolfe-meets Soundgarden-like “Holding Me Down” which features Sami Michelsen’s bluesy crooning and wailing over a menacing and scorching riffs, thunderous drumming within an arrangement that rapidly shifts time signatures and tempos.
The result is a song that feels and sounds feral, unpredictable, difficult to pigeonhole and wildly adventurous.
The accompanying video evokes — and seems inspired by our contemporary and seemingly unending hellscape of despair, protest, inequity, bloodshed and fire.
