Metal
RAM release “Against” on Friday 9 October through Metal Blade Records, their first full-length since “The Throne Within” in 2019. There are eleven tracks, cut at Studio Recordia in Varberg with Johan Reiven producing, and the one trailed with a video is “Abattoir”.
“‘Abattoir’ is pure speed metal. To me it sounds like a mixture of Bonded By Blood-era Exodus and Accept,” the band say of the song. The record, they say, is about resistance, opposition and a refusal to submit, and leaves behind the spiritual and metaphysical material of its predecessors; they were after an organic, direct sound, with early Dio, MSG and Sweet as reference points.
The line-up on the album is Oscar Carlquist on vocals, Harry Granroth and Martin Jonsson on guitars, Tobias Petterson on bass and Morgan Pettersson on drums. It closes with “The Final Hour”, and “Ghost Emperor”, “One Vs. All”, “Night Blade” and “1984” come along the way.
The release show is the same day, 9 October, at Skjulet in Gothenburg, with Portrait, and it is Tobias Petterson’s last after seventeen years in the band: Desekrator takes over on bass.
They play Barcelona on Sunday 6 December, at Upload. It is the third of four nights in a row in Spain: the 4th at Spectrum in Murcia, the 5th at Peter Rock in Valencia and the 7th at Urban in Vitoria-Gasteiz.
Text by Roger Estivill