Absolute Underground TV

Following the release of Pollinator last fall on Toronto-based Artoffact Records, Michigan grindcore mainstays Cloud Rat announces today a European tour kicking off in Belgium on April 16th. Slovenian sludge-doom act Leechfeast will support. The tour dates are below.

Pollinator has received many year-end accolades in recent weeks, including 2019 best-of list appearances from Pitchfork, The Quietus, and Treble Zine, amongst several others. The band also topped off an amazing decade of music by playing the Metal Injection 15th anniversary party in December.

Cloud Rat's appearances at Roadburn Festival will be a special stop on their return to Europe. The festival is co-curated by Emma Ruth Rundle, who asked Cloud Rat to play two shows: an intense main set of grindcore, hardcore punk, and the metal the band is known for; and a special second set, Do Not Let Me Off the Cliff, hi-lighting the band's experimental-electronic side.

Cloud Rat’s evolution from a weird political grindcore band into a more unquantifiable (though still political) extreme music band came to a head in 2019 when the Michigan trio released Pollinator, their many-headed fourth LP.

2020 Europe tour 

16 April 2020 Belgium Leffinge "De Zwerver *
17-18 April 2020 Netherlands Tilburg "roadburn festival
19 April 2020 Germany Berlin "ZUKUNFT am Ostkreuz *
20 April 2020 Germany Leipzig "Zoro *
21 April 2020 Czech Republic Prague "Underdogs *
22 April 2020 Austria Wien "Arena *
23 April 2020 Slovakia Bratislava "Kulturák klub *
24 April 2020 Hungary Budapest "Aurora *
25 April 2020 Austria Linz "Kapu *
27 April 2020 Netherlands Arnhem "Willemeen *
28 April 2020 Belgium Bruxelles "Magasin 4 *
29 April 2020 England London "Black Heart *
30 April 2020 England Sheffield "Network 2 * 

1 May 2020 England Newport "LePub *
2 May 2020 Iceland Reykjavík "Gaukurinn

* with Leechfeast

Lineup:

Madison Marshall - vocals

Rorik Brooks - guitar, keyboards, samples

Brandon Hill - drums

Photo credit: Jason Tipton

"Seven Heads" appears on Cloud Rat's upcoming, fourth full-length album Pollinator, due out September 13th on Artoffact Records.

Order or listen to this album at:

https://orcd.co/cloudratpollinator

"Seven Heads" rips through speakers with a mix of death metal and grindcore, while haunting synths swell deep underneath. Cloud Rat guitarist Rorik Brooks describes the song as "somewhere between Coffins, Morbid Angel, Discordance Axis, and Deftones," also acknowledging sci-fi masters Ray Bradbury and David Cronenberg as lyrical inspirations. Like many of Pollinator's songs, "Seven Heads" addresses the potential lethality of the internet. Brooks says, "[Vocalist] Madison Marshall was thinking of the Cronenberg film, The Brood, and took that kind of surreal body-horror vibe and married it to modern delusional terror, i.e. social media, where every day our brains are pollinated constantly by different emotions, ideologies and identity delusions."

Over the past ten years, Cloud Rat has established itself as one of the most compelling bands in the underground – releasing four full-length albums, eleven EPs and splits, a live album, and various other comps, the prolific Michigan trio has made a name for itself via sheer emotion and musical freedom. Emerging from the space where hardcore punk spirals into grindcore, Cloud Rat incorporates musical influences from across the map – black metal, death metal, noise, folk, and beyond – all while retaining its realness and urgency.

Brooks states, "Pollinator is our most complete and accomplished work yet. It is the quintessence of everything we've tried to say and do before, and it's kind of fitting that we are coming up on a decade of being a band together."