Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Rat Boy, Warner Music UK 2019.
I reviewed Rat Boy’s 2017 debut Album Scum last year and commented about the musicality in his rap.
He achieves this through mixing various styles together, notably hip hop, rap and rock and including sung and spoken words in the lyrics.
It’s not surprising that musicality is important to him when he lists influences such as The Clash and The Streets along with Kendrick Lamar as being important to his sound.
For his second album, Rat Boy has teamed up with legendary American musician/producer Tim Armstrong.
Rat Boy had come across Armstrong’s punk/hip-hop band, Transplants, in his father’s record collection and was so intrigued that he delved into the American’s back catalogue with bands such as Rancid and Operation Ivy.
Whenever he was asked about his influences Rat Boy would always mention Armstrong and consequently the L.A. punk veteran discovered the young Essex hip-hop artist.
It may seem an odd pairing, separated by 30 years and the Atlantic Ocean, but the two had an immediate rapport.
The album was recorded at Armstrong’s Shiprec Studios in just three sessions which amounted to a total of two months’ work. They apparently captured three demos on their first day together.
The two musicians found that they had a wealth of creative and unorthodox ideas such as chopping up the live drums before filtering them through an old tape machine or Rat Boy playing Armstrong’s left handed guitar upside down to create different sounds. And discovering how useful a ukulele bass could be.
Much of the music was recorded live by Rat Boy’s band before being rearranged in the editing studio.
Internationally Unknown is a series of songs loosely organised around a theme which explores the conflict between outlaws and the police during a period of post-apocalyptic disorder.
Rat Boy studied art at Colchester Institute and he draws his own album covers.
