A long stretch of years slipped by between Last Relapse’s farewell and the moment they decided to step back into the light. Plenty of bands walk away and stay gone, but this Atlanta group let their old sessions sit quietly, almost forgotten, until the pull of unfinished ideas finally became impossible to ignore.

During that time, drummer Justin Canada and the rest of the band built entirely different lives. The noise and momentum that once carried them through crowded rooms across the Southeast faded as work, distance, and family shifted their priorities. They scattered, settled, and changed. Yet some rhythms have a way of lingering in the background, waiting for the right moment to rise again.

Their new self-titled EP owes its existence to that feeling. The band revisited stray files, half-formed sketches, and raw early takes not out of nostalgia but because those fragments still had something to say. With fresh ears and a lot of years behind them, they reshaped those pieces into something that feels current, forceful, and surprisingly clear.

What comes next explores how Last Relapse found their footing again. It’s a look at rediscovery, at the stubborn pull of songs that don’t let go, and at how a band can reconnect with work they thought they’d left behind for good.

Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically?
With “Rats in a Cage,” we were trying to capture that feeling of being swallowed up by work, noise, and constant distraction while larger systems and powers are quietly preying on you in the background. It’s about feeling like you’re running on a wheel that never stops, knowing something’s off but not quite being able to step outside of it.

We chose to visualize this one because it felt both immediate and relatable; it’s one of the catchier songs on the EP, but underneath the hook there’s this tension and frustration that a lot of people are carrying around right now. The contrast between the upbeat energy and the heavier subject matter made it feel really cinematic to us, like it was asking to live beyond just the audio.

What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?
We felt like a busy city captures the meaning of the song better than anything else. There’s this constant buzz—cars, lights, people moving in every direction—that mirrors the mental clutter the song is talking about. At the same time, when you’re up high looking over it all, you get this strange mix of power and insignificance, like you’re both part of the machine and slightly outside of it.

Visually, we wanted something that felt raw, direct, and performance-driven rather than a literal storyline. Letting the city itself be the backdrop and “character” gave us that sense of pressure, motion, and chaos without spelling everything out. The idea was: plug the band into that environment and let the song do most of the storytelling.

What was the process of making this video?
We found a rooftop location in Atlanta that immediately felt perfect for the song — it gave us the skyline, the movement, and that feeling of being suspended above all the chaos. Once we locked that in, we built the whole concept around letting the band perform in that space and capturing as many dynamic angles as we could within a tight window of time.

We produced it ourselves in one day, which gave the shoot a very DIY, scrappy energy that actually fits the band and the track. It was a small team, a lot of pre-planning, and then just committing to the performance once we were up there. Because it was self-produced, every decision was very intentional: no big budget tricks, just us, the city, and the song.