hEARd Magazine
Australia

A superbly crafted release from New York based duo Rat Wakes Red, released on their own label Rat Disk. It's a superbly crafted selection of 17 tracks in total, reminiscent just a little of the music of Simon & Garfunkel, taking you on some amazing journeys of sound, driven largely by acoustic guitar, vocals, keyboards & viola, surprisingly without any percussion throughout. The opening track is simply titled "Intro" & that's exactly what it is, followed by a wonderful vocal performance on "Stoned & Ravished" & "Dead Ringer". The album is stacked full of highlights & it's very hard to pick a clear favourite from the tracklisting here. Other highlights include ""Gold", "Grave Wide Open", "Silverfish" & "Day Haze", but I think "Higher Places" would have to be the clincher for my liking. Every song without exception sees this most interesting of bands make their mark on your mind & it's to their credit that they've stayed with a stripped back sound rather than resorting to technical trickery or high amplification to try & improve their already impressive sound as it's already about as good as it gets.