Rats on Rafts, The Victoria review - crepuscular Dutch quintet begins to see the light

An album is one thing, a live show is another. A truism of course, but one which is inescapable during this London date by the Rotterdam-based Rats on Rafts at a shabby chic pub in Dalston, East London.

Rats on Rafts’ measured new album, Deep Below – released a couple of weeks ago – inhabits the shadows cast by the early Eighties Cure, with a nod to the Cocteau Twins of slightly later. The hyperactive sonic assault colouring their predecessor albums is set aside in favour of a hazy shade of grey.

It’s not-quite goth and not-quite a fun factory, but this is irresistibly kinetic stuff

This penultimate date of a short British tour swiftly confirmed the new album’s typically slow-moving songs weren’t the restrictive template they might have been. So much so that the febrile Rats on Rafts of the past could be integrated with the glacial Rats on Rafts of the present. “Osaka,” a single from around the time of 2021’s churning, dense last album Excerpts From Chapter 3: The Mind Runs A Net Of Rabbit Paths is played. So are that album’s “A Trail of Wind and Fire” and, as the encore, “Tokyo Music Experience.” The older material is stripped back and reassembled, recast to be in line with the new approach adopted for Deep Below. The makeover ensures there is no discordance between the old and the new. Similarly, songs from the latest album also turn out to be mutable: becoming bouncier and more fluid in a live setting than on Deep Below. What’s embraced on the new album is revealed to not be a be-all-and-end-all.

Apart from the three Chapter 3-period songs and “Painting Roses” – issued on a single in 2014 – the set is otherwise dedicated to Deep Below, which is played in full. The chief rat is David Fagan (guitar, vocals) who, on stage, brings to mind Reece Shearsmith. He writes the lyrics and sings most of the songs. Collectively, in the main, the whole band writes the music. For these dates, mainstays Fagan, Mathijs Burgler (drums), Arnoud Verheul (guitar: a really cool Fender 12-string) and Natasha van Waardenburg (bass, some vocals) are supplemented by Flor de Maria Alarcón (guitar, keyboards).

The surprise appearance of The Cure’s 'Friday I'm in Love' over the PA before Rats on Rafts go on is uncannily apt

The filled-out line-up offers space. For “Osaka,” Alarcón plays guitar rather than the string-like sound-wash keyboards employed for most of the set. The forward motion of this three-guitar version of the band is akin to “Leave me Alone” New Order, with an uninhibited interplay between the players. As the set progresses, van Waardenburg’s bass and Burgler’s circular drum patterns are increasingly insistent. Feet in the audience are moving. There is dancing. Rats on Rafts are no longer the unalloyed dark-wave gloomsters they seem to be on Deep Below. It’s not-quite goth and not-quite a fun factory, but this is irresistibly kinetic stuff. Light is penetrating the gloom.

Where the unpredictable Rats on Rafts might go next is suggested by what’s heard over the PA just before they go on. A thoughtlessly random mish-mash of this-and-that including Fleetwood Mac has been playing, so the song is an arbitrary manifestation. There is no programming. As the band walk on stage, The Cure’s "Friday I'm in Love" fades out. The surprise appearance of one of Robert Smith and co’s poppiest moments is uncannily apt. While Deep Below’s gestures towards The Cure at their most melancholy are unashamed, this progressively animated and dynamic live display suggests brightness is coming. It may not be as upbeat as "Friday I'm in Love” when it arrives, but the hints are there. See Rats on Rafts' new album and this show as part of a journey out of darkness, rather than the destination.

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