Go backstage with The Music and receive FREE:

  • Exclusive members-only editorial, charts
  • Our subscriber-only newsletter
  • Members only competitions to win tickets, experiences and more
  • Access to our street press archives
  • First access to our exclusive limited edition vinyl variants

Thank you for being a part of our community! Enter your email address as verification and you'll be taken backstage right away.

Please ensure that you provide a valid email address.

Album Review: Menace Beach - Ratworld

Brendan Telford
StarStarStarStar

"The album feels like a time capsule as much as homage."

More Menace Beach Menace Beach

Crawling out of the cesspit on the entrails of Hookworms and Eagulls is Ratworld, the debut album from Leeds band Menace Beach.

The band’s named after a shitty ‘90s NES game – and the touchstones don’t stop there. Unadulterated adulation of the likes of The Breeders (Elastic) seesaws to more straight-up rock (Lowtalkin). These influences are so ingrained into Ratworld that the album feels like a time capsule as much as homage. Then there’s the flagrant vulnerability of Blue Eye, which takes in the shoegaze dissonance/fragility dichotomy to perfection.