Castle Rat were one of the breakout sensations from the underground heavy metal scene last year, and a bombastic new, up-close and personal live video has shown us all exactly why.
The much-hyped fantasy metallers, who play a stirring, particularly gung ho style of old school doom metal wrapped in a brilliant, Dungeons & Dragons (and rats)-style concept, performed live in the KEXP studio earlier this year, and the whole set has now been uploaded to Youtube.
In the 20-minute performance, the New York five-piece dish out slab after slab of fuzzy heavy metal riffage, led by Riley 'Rat Queen' Pinkerton, who's fast making a name for herself as one of modern metal's very best frontpeople.
Near the end of the band's set, Riley and 'Rat Reaperess' Rebecca Corrigan perform their now famous on-stage battle - a spectacle that went viral on metal social media in 2025.
Watch the video for yourself below.
Speaking to Metal Hammer in November last year, Riley Pinkerton revealed how her 'Rat Queen' concept was a last minute addition to the band's shtick that went over so well she built it into a core part of their mythos.
“When I started the band it was just a name and we all wore black, but then we got booked on a Halloween show so I very last minute crudely put together the characters and the costumes out of cardboard boxes and paper mâché,” she explained. “It was so fun we just thought, ‘What if we do this every time?’ Now I needed a reason as to why I am the Rat Queen and there’s a plague doctor and a vampire, so I retroactively wrote the lore and it tumbled into what it is.”
You can pick up a special Castle Rat bundle, featuring a limited edition rat plushie, a picture disc edition of last year's acclaimed The Bestiary album and an exclusive Metal Hammer cover, via the official Metal Hammer store.
