Two-and-a-half minutes into "Udder Dust", perhaps the most ambitious and grand song to date in the catalogue of Michigan quartet Cloud Rat, singer, screamer and band philosopher Madison Marshall hurls the single question that seems to underpin the entire act’s existence: "How do I convince you I’m living?" she screams, her violent voice slowing toward the back half of the sentence as the beat breaks in two. The 17 songs on Qliphoth, the audacious third LP from the nominally grindcore group, portray characters often trampled under society’s heaviest feet—inner-city outcasts and sexual deviants, drug addicts and civil servants, the emotionally disturbed and the physically wounded. Cops abuse inmates. Bosses victimize employees. Humans exploit animals. Each group treats the next as if they were somehow doing something less than living. But with her pointed poetry vivified and fortified by the band around her, Marshall, one of metal’s best new bandleaders, unapologetically offers those characters a megaphone. Qliphoth feels like a series of prepared rebellions, then, simply waiting to start.
It’s always been easiest to talk about Cloud Rat as a grindcore band. Their self-titled 2010 LP ripped through 11 numbers in just less than 18 minutes, while 2013’s Moksha crammed its first 12 songs into about 22 minutes. But the latter’s closing title track made it clear there was more to Cloud Rat than sprinting and stammering. Throbbing bass and groaning guitar drifted around an eerie piano theme, Marshall’s wordless vocals webbing around the instruments like the ghosts of her wrath. Coupled with the album’s occasional nods to D-beat, black metal, and even classic, riff-driven rock'n'roll, the Godspeed-shaped instrumental suggested a wider trajectory for Cloud Rat than that of mere Assück, Brutal Truth, or Carcass disciples. (Their cover of "The Needle and the Damage Done", one DJ Lethal turntable solo away from Limp Bizkit’s "Faith", would have dispatched any lingering doubt.) On Qliphoth, they doggedly power around those predecessors once and for all.
Aside from their respective finales, neither of Cloud Rat’s previous albums included a track that broke the three-minute mark. But a quarter of Qliphoth’s songs do, evidence of the band’s decision and ability to do more here than plow ahead with vitriol, velocity, and volume. "Udder Distance", for instance, climbs from an arching riff and a low tempo to a tremolo-and-blast-beat bristle, touching on death metal and post-punk along the way. "Raccoon" unfurls as steadily escalating doom, the drums pulling backward even as Marshall’s voice arrows ahead. Previously a trio, Cloud Rat expanded into a quartet for Qliphoth, adding Brandon Hill and his abrasive electronics to the guitar, drums, and screams. His impact is immediate, as album opener "Seken" begins with a static roar, a droning guitar, and Marshall’s momentarily seraphic vocals, refracted as if by a prism. On "Thin Vein", the first half of a two-part suite, Hill emboldens the band’s slow rise from a post-rock drift into a powerful, Neurosis-sized coda.
All of these influences wind around a grindcore framework, now five years in the making for Cloud Rat. They are cold and efficient when it comes to the basics, as on the 96-second tirade "Live Wake" or the prurient, punctuation-free "Bloated Goat". Marshall is thrilling and telling on these brow beaters, as she’s able to control her voice without mitigating its barbaric effect. With the band racing behind during "Botched", she manages to deliver commands like "Get on your feet, you fucking dog" with elocution and impact. You can actually hear what she’s talking about—and feel it, too.
Even within metal, grindcore is often regarded as a relatively impenetrable niche, where lots of words and riffs come crammed in very little spaces. Sometimes, the pugnacious effect of it all gets more attention than the particulars. But on Qliphoth, Cloud Rat take the time and risks necessary to make sure their points are clear, that all their rage is not for naught. "The end goal is really just for cathartic therapy, as it’s hard to express yourself in public," Marshall told Kim Kelly in an interview earlier this month. "You can’t beat up your boss, you can’t stop the clock, etc. So we need this outlet to survive at this point." To that end, Qliphoth invokes both folk and punk rock, idioms where form and function commingle rather than compete. Cloud Rat’s misgivings with the world both power and mutate the music they make, rendering a rebellious vision of liberation and existence. During "Rusting Belt", the band loops a sample of Brenna Sanchez, the co-director of a documentary about Detroit’s recent seizure by fire. "Arson is a form of self-expression in a place where you can’t express yourself," she says. On Qliphoth, Cloud Rat extend tempestuous expressions for troubled times—proof of life, offered with utter conviction.
