LA BALLADE DES RATS Rattus Magnus CD

The 2021 album Rattus Magnus by the French band La Ballade Des Rats, co-released by the labels Acid Vicious and Percussive Spectre, represents a unique and haunting fusion of Raw Black Metal with strong medieval influences. Serving as the third installment in a plague-themed trilogy, the record delivers a rat metal aesthetic that leans heavily into themes of pestilence, decay, and historical suffering. Musically, the album balances lo-fi, frantic black metal aggression with surprisingly melodic and folk-inspired passages, often utilizing acoustic instrumentation to set a somber, archaic atmosphere before descending into high-velocity swarms of tremolo riffing. The twelve-track journey begins with the acoustic intro Impedimentum and moves through a series of French and Latin-titled compositions such as Bourrasque Pestiférée, Le Sacre du Rat, and Affliction Divine, finally concluding with À Dieu Aux Rats. The production maintains a gritty, underground texture that mirrors the diseased imagery of the lyrics, while the artwork by Romain Buffenoir reinforces the grim, medieval narrative. Featuring the core lineup of Lepre, Svartoth, and Pigù, Rattus Magnus solidified the band’s reputation in the French black metal scene as master storytellers of the Black Death, offering a sound that is as atmospheric as it is chaotic.