[9] Greg Kennelty of Metal Injection described the song as sounding similar to 1980s Ozzy Osbourne, calling it "as heavy metal as you wanted it to be, with killer guitar solos, a badass drum intro, and riffs that sound like they might've been sitting in Ozzy's basement since the 80s.

Lyrically, the song is about humanity's tendency to rush to judgement and mob mentality.

Public trials are very unsupervised and extremely swift and speak to the most primordial parts of us...It's actually not technically about rodents, it's about something spreading as wildfire and completely destroying things quicker than you know.

[10]Kennelty praised the song for being "darker" and "heavier" than the material from their prior album Meliora, concluding that "if you've been dying for something like Ghost's debut album Opus Eponymous with a more updated sound, then you're going to absolutely love 'Rats'.

"[2] Vince Neilstein of Metal Sucks similarly praised it for its catchy guitar riffs.