Castle Rat’s Into The Realm is a debut built from hard rock weight and doom metal drag, with Riley Pinkerton’s guitar and vocals joined by Henry Black’s lead work, Ronnie Lanzilotta III’s bass, and Josh Strmic’s drums. The nine songs lean into the band’s medieval-fantasy identity without leaving the basics behind, moving through titles such as “Dagger Dragger,” “Resurrector,” “Realm,” and “Nightblood” with a clear taste for heavy riffs and theatrical framing. It comes from Brooklyn’s current rock and metal scene, and was recorded in an abandoned Philadelphia church that the band converted into a temporary studio. The sessions took a little over two and a half days, with Orange amps at the centre of the setup and Davis M. Shubs and Thomas Johnsen handling recording and engineering.
There’s a raw, direct feel to that approach, rather than the polished gloss of a heavily edited metal production. Rafferty Jennings Swink mixed it, while the cover uses a photograph by Ronnie Lanzilotta, with the layout by Olivia Cummings and logo by Pinkerton. Doom fans will find the slow-burning heft familiar, while anyone after guitar-led hard rock with a fantasy streak has plenty to investigate. The paid release comes in FLAC 16/44, alongside MP3, ALAC, WAV, and AIFF, with vinyl, CD, cassette, and a sizeable run of band merchandise available too.
