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Rat Bath, as a creative entity, are going through a rebirth (or rat-birth, as they playfully call it) to leave behind their previous Y’allternative creative direction in favor of what you hear on the track we’re premiering here.
Gone are the galloping beats and twisted/supernatural frontier stories of their most recent album, Call Me a Monster. In its place is what they refer to as “Post-Everything Ratcore," which you can hear in the new single, “I Eat My Enemies.” A slightly more universal label might be “indie grunge,” made immediately evident by a guitar riff that would’ve been right at home in the mid-’90s and lyrics that cast a harsh eye inward while still lashing out:
I'm sick, I'm sick
I won't go to the doctor
I won't let them tell me what I already know
The smaller version of me
I was supposed to protect them
I wish I could show you
But I already swallowed you
As the band noted, “I Eat My Enemies” reflects “an artist's universal struggle with imposter syndrome characterized [by] a cathartic burst of raw emotion.” Lead vocalist Fred Kenyon does a great job on that front with their raw and rangy delivery, capped by an out-and-out bellow in the song’s closing moments.
It’s a new chapter for the band, to be sure, and you can turn the page with them by hitting the “Listen” button at the top of the page or catching “I Eat My Enemies” on 88Nine throughout today (6:30 and 10:30 a.m.; 2:30, 6:30 and 9:30 p.m.).
The track will also be part of Rat Bath’s upcoming EP, Can’t Stand the Thought of Us Ever Being Apart, which is due out Sept. 6. They’ll celebrate the release of what they call their “most authentic, personal and honest work to date” with a show the following night, Sept. 7, at X-Ray Arcade.
