Title: The Grave of Seven Billion
Genre: Death/Thrash Metal
Year: 30th June 2017
Time: 30 min
Rating: 69/100
Aleksey Koryolov of Satanath Records sent to me 3 mega-pack of releases so far...and I have been still listening to the albums of the first mega-pack (Ram-page included)! Soon or later, I think to summarize in few words 2 or more of these releases in a single article to put in the new "mini-reviews" section, so to make more ready and faster the reviews. Meanwhile, today it's the turn of Ram-page, a Russian quartet that is so prolific that this "The Grave of Seven Billion" (released by GrimmDistribution, another parent label of Satanath Rec) is their 4th album within 8 years of existence!
After the acoustic intro "Awakening of the Ancient", the first song "Betrayer" starts to annihilate the ears of the listeners without any compromises. In fact, Ram-page is one of those bands that I like a lot because they basically play a fast and furious death/thrashing attack! A lot of blast-beats with some headbanging thrash parts, deep growls accompanied by some lacerating screams, ripping guitar solos and songs built around neurotic schemes with many tempo changes and some chaotic and noisy vibes (like the guitar feedback in "Sanctions"): this is the music of these 4 angry guys from Noginsk, in the Moscow region! The ultra-violent "Betrayer" and the following "Can of Beer" (ful of groovy parts in a scrapping thrash-style) are excellent starters for an album that promises a bunch of impressive things.
Reading some articles about this album, I realized that the reviewers put mainly the accent to the levels of brutality and aggression by Ram-page. But, to say the truth, they crafted also more mid-tempo oriented songs ("The Revolution") and show even a little will to experiment curious ideas. Examples of this are given by "Sanctions" (where there is a totally abrupt change of mood through a more atmospheric riffing enough close to black metal) and the following "Last Defenders" (where, in its first seconds, there is a completely crazy riff with...funky influences!), without forgetting the unpredictable final guitar solo with strange melodies of the closing track "Blood Money".
This band pic if fukken Amazing, don't you think?
But the problem is that the album promises a lot but, at the end, the memorable songs are only "Betrayer" and "Can of Beer" along maybe with "Blood Money" for its spectacular end. In fact, some of the numbers lacks paradoxically of the right intensity ("The Revolution", that haven't got any guitar solos, that, instead, could be useful during the fast parts) while some mood changes are really too abrupt and useless for the purposes of the musical discourse ("Sanctions"). In addition, you have to consider also that, especially in the second side of the album, the band loves to play with a notable frequency some slamming brutal death metal parts that I consider too generic to attract my attention. Finally, there is a particular noise that ends (almost) every number but it becomes a bit invasive in "Last Defenders" because repeated some times into the breaks of this song (it is up to you to discover this "particular noise", right?).
This album, enriched with the contributions of the lead guitar player Pavel Zhdanovich (known for his prog metal project with the same name) is a bit strange. Firstly, I like a lot the kind of wild and chaotic assault perpetrated by Ram-page, and the same goes to the abrasive production of "The Grave of Seven Billion". But, secondly, the album isn't so impressive throughout its entirety, and it's a shame that it shows its best things mostly with the first songs "Betrayer" and "Can of Beer". I think that if the album was in the same ultra-violent and scrapping vein of these numbers without the experimental ideas and the slamming brutal parts, it could be better than now but that's it. Now, did you read some songtitles like "Can of Beer" or "Sanctions"? Aren't they fukken strange? And, searching by Metal-Archives, I realized also that the previous albums of Ram-page have got songtitles with a single word like "Show", "Way", "Night", "Wind" and blah blah blah! But what is the meaning behind these incredibly strange titles?
Tracklist:
1 - Awakening of the Ancient (Intro)
2 - Betrayer
3 - Can of Beer
4 - The Revolution
5 - The President
6 - Rampage
7 - Sanctions
8 - Last Defenders
9 - The Grave of Seven Billion
10 - Blood Money
Line-up:
Stanislav Shtrih - vocals
Sergey Privalov - guitars/vocals
Dmitriy Dolgov - bass/vocals
Kirill Kasatkin - drums
Guest:
Pavel Zhdanovich - lead guitars
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rampagemusic/
VKontakte: http://vk.com/rampagedeath
GrimmDistribution: http://satanath.com/distro
No comments:
Post a Comment