Band:	Ram
Album:	Death
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	December 2011
A review by:	Doc G.

01. Death?
02. ?Comes From The Mouth Beyond
03. I Am The End
04. Release Me
05. Defiant
06. Frozen
07. Under The Scythe
08. Hypnos
09. Flame Of The Tyrants
10. 1 7 7 1

Nostalgia vs sounding outdated. Where's the line? Is there a line? Please tell me there is, so we can tell Ram they just crossed it.

Admittedly Death does work well at drawing the listener in; the opening track sounding like something out of some long forgotten, cheesy cult horror movie. It then breaks into the thundering "...Comes From The Mouth Beyond", followed by an even meaner "I Am The End"...and then comes...wait, you know what? Fuck it. This band writes some downright destructive riffs, sounding like a slightly more aggressive version of any number of old NWOBHM bands.

That's about the point where the enjoyment stops.

The first spin through, Death is an album that just bleeds awesome riffage. The replay value, however, is a flat 0. The difference between nostalgia and being outdated? Nostalgia should be a way of interpreting the long-gone classics, while injecting them with your own flavour to make them relevant to the modern listener. Think about it; what's the point in listening to a carbon-copy of a classic when you could just as well actually listen to the real thing? Ram seem to completely forget about the phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants" because frankly, this ain't an improvement, or even a re-interpretation. It's a re-hash. Plain and simple. Everything down to the production seems to be an eager attempt to replicate older bands. This much effort should not be put into sounding exactly the same as someone else.

Ram's Death is a novelty album. First play through, you'll be intrigued by the classic sound. Afterwards, the worship starts to come across as more sad than anything else.