HolyRoller – Rat King

by Mark 'Yeti' Richard · June 23, 2025

HolyRoller is a powerful stoner rock/ heavy metal band from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The quartet features Adam Cody on rhythm guitar and vocals, Jay Ovittore on drums and gang vocals, Steve Poe on lead guitar, and Jason Kincaid on bass guitar and backing vocals. They have released a 2020 Self Titled EP entitled HolyRoller EP, 2022’s Swimming Witches, and their latest album, 2025’s Rat King. Rat King was released on June 6th 2025 and it is the band’s debut album for Ripple Music. It contains eight tracks around thirty six minutes long.

“Crunch Riff Supreme” kicks right in to start off Rat King and delivers a heavy dose of hard rocking fury. The title describes the devastating music nicely and the vocals shift from clean to nasty. HolyRoller has a deep fuzz and rawness to their sound delivering an old school hardcore and crunchy texture to this track. It’s a pretty straightforward song that has a good flow to it with a punchy and dense drum beat with melodic and elaborate guitar leads. The second track “Titan” begins with the bass and ignites a heavy sludgy doom riff. The vocals are excellent, incorporating clean singing mixed with torturous screams. The lumbering rhythms which start the song stops midway through and shifts into a mid paced rocker. It then returns to the stoner doom assault as the track closes out.

“Forbidden Things” starts with clean guitars that quickly slams into a heavy and crunchy rhythm. The clean vocals remind me of Red Fang at times and give the song a dark feel throughout. The music is a hard rocking surge of old Clutch style at times, that extracts doom metal and stoner in all of its natural forms. There’s an eighties New York hardcore with a post hardcore essence too that resonates vibes from bands like Quicksand and Supertouch, with these awesome tracks. The aggressive vocals appear again towards the end of the song and HolyRoller kicks into a monstrous and sludgy rhythm to conclude. The fourth song is the title track, “Rat King”. It begins with a dirty metal and thrashy guitar riff that glides into a simple and effective drum beat. The riff is an absolute crusher! The vocals take form and command the song forward with a polished tone that stays smooth and tuneful throughout. The heavy and chuggy riffing continues on and works beautifully well with Andy Cody’s soothing vocals. HolyRoller are amazing songwriters! The music they are crafting is ambiguous but genius in its simple, raw, and direct form of storytelling that these fantastic songs represent. Human suffering is a real force that needs to be dealt with and Rat King is the ultimate soundtrack to understanding and overcoming these challenges. On each new listen the sound expands and gets better. In one particular moment, the music really affected me and sucked me deeply into the sound. These riffs are alive and will take over and transform you on an incredible and sonically powerful journey.

“Buried Alone” is another solid track that starts with the drums and hits some accents with the vocals out front. The stoner grooves keep flowing with busy bass lines and exciting guitar work. The stop start pauses are a nice touch with this song also. “Heave Ho” cranks right in with hard driven rhythms and alluring psychedelic twists. The song has a stomping groove that explodes into some faster rhythms and back. It also connects to a softer tone midway through and displays some powerful guitar leads too. The next track is called “Radiating Sacred Light”. The band all start together and blaze through more swamp heavy stoner grooves. HolyRoller has a powerful and punchy sound that is easy to get into. The sleek vocals, I find, conjoin everything together in a very tight and cohesive unit. The manner in which these songs are written and constructed is a testament of how great the band actually is. The music is nothing too elaborate but it all works out very well from song to song.

The final track on Rat King is called “Drift Into The Sun”. It’s a great topper to close out this excellent record. The sound quality on Rat King is very suitable because it distills a rawest throughout and every instrument is clear in the mix, and coalesces with the lyrical content. The band states: “Lyrically, our themes revolve around navigating mental health as Adam Cody sings about suicidal thoughts and finding peace in being an atheist, substance abuse, political ideologies, aging in the music industry and more.” Overall, this is an amazing album that gets better with every listen. Upon my first time hearing it there was a draw that kept increasing each subsequent time I put it on. That’s why I know better to never judge a recording on the first listen. Great albums grow on me and this one is no exception.

With repeated listens, Rat King will seep into your body, mind, and soul, and totally rule your world. HolyRoller is an absolute gift to the heavy underground music scene. They are simply amazing and will become your new favorite band in short notice. Enjoy the enchanted ride from such a captivating band. They are exceptional and will surely fill a lot of audio headspace once you start listening.