Introducing: Citizen Rat

Queensland quartet Citizen Rat have crafted an unapologetic, mid-core sound that fuses chaotic energy, big riffs and catchy hooks.

The Sunshine Coast band is formed of four mates who make music together, some of whom have known each other and made music together since high school. It was formed by Dartanyon (vocals and guitars) and Baxter (drums) in 2020 before being joined by guitarist Brendan in 2022 and bassist Lewis in 2024.

On their approach, the band told us: “We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we take what we do seriously. We just want to have fun, make cool music, and play cool shows.

“We have often struggled to accurately describe our sound to people who haven’t heard us. It should be easy, but we aren’t really a punk band, and we wouldn’t describe ourselves as a straight-ahead rock band either. We’re often told our music is ‘familiar, yet different,’ which we naturally take as a compliment. We have, however, recently started referring to or sound as Mid-Core. Like hardcore, but a little bit softer.”

Our latest taste of this is Shut My Mouth, which was released on Friday. It opens up with a fun riff that kicks on under lively drums and drops into a verse of fast-paced vocals. That feeds into a catchy chorus “I’m a piece of shit, I can’t shut my mouth, Seems my life is heading south, Oh did I fuck up? Yeah I’m not surprised, Or is it paranoia in my eyes?” More cool vocals follow in the second verse, flowing into another catchy chorus. That gives way to a stabbing little guitar line, supporting repeating vocals that drop into a big smash of heavy guitars, which give way to a big final blast of the chorus. It’s heavy, chaotic, super-catchy, and we love it.

Speaking ahead of its release, the band told us: “Very excited. We have put a lot of time, work, and energy into making this song the absolute best it can be. The song went through so many re-writes and tweaks before we took it to our producer Jordan, and he helped us add those finishing touches that make the track an absolute banger (in our humble opinion). As far as comparisons to our previous EP, this is building off the framework of that, but it’s better in every way. Better performances, better production, and better songwriting.”

The track follows on from Citizen Rat’s 2022 debut EP Looking Down From Up Below, which is packed with more heavy punky goodness, including the excellent Gods Regret and Hole In My Head.

The Citizen Rat sound is inspired by a diverse range of musical influences, including the likes of Karnivool, Clutch, Violent Femmes, Guns n Roses, Idles, Alice in Chains and Ween.

On what inspires them to write music, the band explained: “Getting hit with a big old chunk of life is usually the catalyst for writing. We write a lot about our own experiences, as well as the people and events around us. Personal battles ranging from grief to identity and introspection We like to use the tool of character writing too; often from the third person perspective, even if we’re referring to ourselves. Speaking from third person kind of feels like it opens the concepts up to everyone, as apposed to closing the song off to a particular individual.”

Citizen Rat will be heading out on a small tour to support Shut My Mouth, before releasing another single. They’ll then return to the studio to record more music with a view to releasing a full-length album.

And the band added: “Sorry to reference an old meme, but if we had a nickel for every band member who is celiac in Citizen Rat, we would have 2 nickels (Dartanyon and Brendan), which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.”

You can follow Citizen Rat on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, and check out their music on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.