Rats On Rafts

Rotterdam’s Rats on Rafts descend further into the brooding wasteland on their new album ‘Deep Below’  set for release on 7th February on Fire Records alongside an extensive Winter/Spring 2025 tour across Europe and the UK. 

Out of the fog emerges a darker, slower, eroded Rats on Rafts. New album ‘Deep Below’  is less rich in the mood swings of its predecessor 2021’s ‘Excerpts From Chapter 3’  for the waters have stilled, and barren, fog-strewn wastelands remain. Highlighting different shades within the monochrome landscape compared to their previous, more colourful albums: they dive deeper into their psyche, questioning our relationships with nature, religion and each other. Echoes of The Cure, Cocteau Twins and Slowdive seem present yet so many different influences make up an album that only they could create. It sees Rats on Rafts coming of age whilst raising their heads from the underground. 

Forever drifting into new territory, ‘Deep Below’  is certainly their darkest and most cohesive work to date. True to their analog recording process, the tape machines, reverbs, echoes and vital new ingredients: the Soundcraft 1s mixing desk (Used by Lee Perry) and the eerie sounding Eminent String Ensemble synth all amplify the authentic sounds of the 1980’s without sounding like a relic. David Fagan: “We didn’t experience the 80’s but look back on the parts we like, and more recent music inspired by it. Our music could never have come out this way had it been made back then.” 

‘Japanese Medicine’ is a haunting minor chord piece driven by debris of icy chiming guitars, galloping drums and waves of lush synths. lyrically it gathers memories of teenage friendship, littered with cigarettes, life-changing records, punctuated with the dark thoughts and the demons they summon up. David Fagan: “Japanese Medicine is aimed at a former version of myself, that person’s gone but occasionally I miss him because life seemed very promising and unpredictable.” 

Though the band have kept the songs relatively slow-paced and sparse, deeper ruminations of mortality and alienation creep through the cracks. ‘Nature Breaks’, the most propulsive song on the record, thematically locks into this notion, as Fagan meditates on human impulse in the face of abject survival, and how those situations often unlock one’s true self. The resounding ‘All These Things’ channels the strange contradictions of looking at the future as a child, and on the hazy dream pop lurch of closer ‘Sleepwalking’ – a song was written as a reminder to always be open to the curious and the unexpected. No matter how many rabbit paths present themselves, you can always count on these Rotterdam dissidents to carve out their very own. 

You may conclude Rotterdam’s Rats on Rafts relationship with the past is complicated. ‘The Moon Is Big’  (2011) ‘Tape Hiss’  (2015) and ‘Excerpts From Chapter 3’  (2021) are truly gripping analog timestamps of a band refusing to give in to the supposed ‘progress of the world’ instead forging their own way each time. ‘Deep Below’  is Rats on Rafts’ most minimalist work since their 2011 debut. Where the latter album was fuelled by a brash bravado, these recordings meditate on sentiments of doubt, loss, and ageing. Most of the new songs first appeared live in 2023 when supporting The Chills (NZ) on their final UK tour. After the tour was completed Rats on Rafts went straight into their underground studio to start recording their new songs. In 2025 they will resurface to embark on an extensive headline tour supporting the new album through the UK and Europe.