Infest The Rats' Nest Review

Last Friday, prolific genre-defying Aussie rockers released their 15th studio album, Infest The Rats' Nest, their take on a rather old school heavy metal sound mixed with a remarkably topical and contemporary message.

KGATLW frequently have strong narratives running through their music and have produced a variety of concept albums, with this one being no difficult. The opening of the record describes humanity having made Earth uninhabitable, echoing the slogan popularised by Extinction Rebellion in the chorus of the opening track; “there is no Planet B”. The richest in society are able to afford passage to a now-terraformed Mars, while those that remain on Earth watch their world collapse on itself as society is ravaged by superbugs. A group of rebels attempt to journey to Venus, slingshotting themselves around the Sun in the process, but the first ship gets too close and is incinerated. The second ship makes it to Venus before quickly realising that it is hellaciously hot and unbearable to live there, so make the choice to make for Mars and invade - to infest the rats' nest.

The presumably conscious decision not to adopt the modern heavy metal sound but rather make it more a homage actually works remarkably well. Despite going in a completely different direction to any of their other work, their are still plenty of unmistakably King Gizz riffs, as well as some of Ambrose’s signature harmonica playing. The story that is being told is engrossing and compelling, and the dark and distorted music that it sits on top of complements its dystopian tone. The album grew a lot on me after several playthroughs, and while I don’t think it is going to be my favourite KGATLW album, it is very solid nonetheless: 8/10.