The froth levels were ridiculously high when the recent news dropped that Mudvayne and Coal …
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Repeat Listens!
The humble rat and noise pop collide in a sharp metaphor with Argentine-Australian punks The Maggie Pills’ latest single and music video City Rats.
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Taken from the group’s debut album, Hope is a Risk, City Rats is a raw and crunchy foray into social commentary and a firm DIY ethos, with moments of jagged drumwork, fuzzy soundscapes, and the strong 90s alt flavours driven by vocalist Delfi Sorondo.
Inspired by the innate ability of rats to thrive in the most unlikely environments as well as the experiences of Sorondo and drummer Mario Perez walking through the streets of Melbourne during the pandemic, City Rats serves as the group’s brand new album’s opener in short yet sweet fashion, perfectly encapsulating The Maggie Pills’ firm thematic imagery along with their fresh take on the alternative realms.
“The city rats made me think about how perhaps sometimes having less makes you more flexible and thereby increases your chances of survival,” says Sorondo. “Rats will live forever and outlive everything because they are extremely adaptable.”
Like a pied piper of dissonant pop, The Maggie Pills thrive as much as their titular subject matter with City Rats; a tense yet cathartic experience.
Teaming up with frequent Maggie Pills collaborator, Peruvian-Australian director Triana Hernandez, to bring the track’s music video to life, the end result sees the Melbourne-based collective divert from their previous visual style. Ditching some of the gloss but embracing their punk ethos more than ever, the City Rats clip is a lo-fi delight, with a DIY rat costume taking front and centre a la early Mighty Boosh characters mixed with surreal imagery.
Forming shortly after Sorondo and Perez migrated to Australia and quickly finding themselves in the grips of a global pandemic, The Maggie Pills have powerfully found their footing sharing intimate yet universal narratives with Latin-inspired percussion, sharp riffs, crunchy basslines, and vigorous vocals. Like a pied piper of dissonant pop, The Maggie Pills thrive as much as their titular subject matter with City Rats; a tense yet cathartic experience.
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