A quick tip for you: don’t listen to this album in bed when you’re trying to sleep. Your heart will race and you will most likely be thinking about stage diving and mosh pits. Save it for your daily allowance of exercise instead during the lockdown we all find ourselves in. This one is a banger. Twelve songs in 20 minutes of Swedish-style d-beat hardcore from the UK, the brainchild of one man, Bryan J Suddaby, who is credited with writing and performing the entire album, with some additional help on lead guitar and backing vocals. Released this week by fantastic London label La Vida Es Un Mus, Screams from the Cage is a whirlwind of Swedish greats Totalitär, Mob 47 and Avskum with a healthy dollop of UK82 thrown in the mix. If this makes it sound derivative, it’s not meant to. It’s just to highlight what’s in store for you because Rat Cage condenses those influences into a sound that is distinctly its own and contemporary. It doesn’t make for music for contemplation but who wants that anyway when you get politically-charged hardcore that highlights the current political shitfest engulfing the planet now. After a few listens you’ll also want to scream along to "Midnight Death Ride" or "Not Got No Hope." Or, in my case, it makes you want to punch the air while listening to the album on your headphones for the third time in a row, lest you wake up your two year-old sleeping in the next room. But you can always dream of those mosh pits. Because this is bound to rule live.
