Porcupine Tree aren't fooling around with their new album, Closure/Continuation, as they've just dropped a bizarre video for the sneering third single, "Rats Return." Featuring Soviet-era style graphic design and an off-kilter game show, the video plays perfectly with the theme of the song — a takedown of politicians who claim to care for the public but are actually out for themselves.
The track should be right up your alley if you're fan of TOOL, Opeth or Between the Buried and Me. It slinks and skitters its prog riffs over staccato beats in a way that should be familiar to anyone who was a fan of Storm Corrosion, Porcupine Tree frontman Steven Wilson's collaboration with Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt
Wilson recently told NME what inspired the track and how he feels the album is something the band owed fans after 13 years without a proper album.
"The rats are politicians who express having an interest in the public but, when it comes down to it, only want to save themselves. Having lived through Brexit, Trump and Boris Johnson, it wasn't hard to get depressed about what's going on in the world," Wilson told NME.
Asked if he's optimistic things will get better, Wilson responded, "Not very, I'm afraid. When you read that governments are trying to do away with women's rights to have abortions, you think, 'What fucking century are we living in?' I'm always disappointed by that backwards, reactionary way of thinking."
Furthermore, Wilson remarked that this album was partially a product of the disappointment they felt about their last. "We felt there was unfinished business. Our last album, The Incident, wasn't our best. We'd got into the album/tour/album/tour cycle, when it's always been important to feel like there's a reason to make a new record, that it should have its own personality. We walked away from all that, without necessarily meaning to."
Wilson declined to confirm whether the band would continue after this album cycle and noted that the album title is in that sense, "perverse."
Closure/Continuation is out June 24th and pre-orders are available here.
