Ramage Inc - 2023 - Humanity Has Failed [mini-review]

(77:00; Layered Reality Productions)

Scottish band Ramage Inc are out with the album "Humanity Has Failed", and progressive metal is the style explored on this production. It is an intriguing case of a band blending old familiar elements with a more contemporary approach and execution for the form and the style we get on this production. Many of the songs come with associations towards the grand old masters Dream Theater, at least a more reigned in variety of the style that band pioneered, but in this case with some nifty contemporary expansions such as some djent details added here or a little bit of extreme metal intensity or bombastic attitude there. Ramage Inc. are fond of high impact majestic surges produced by instruments and vocal arrangements alike, but they are just as fond of exploring the gentler side to the art of making music. In this case by a liberal inclusion of world music elements and occasional interludes, and with the album title and current world events it is tempting to place those world music elements inside some very specific traditions too. Otherwise I note that this is a guitar dominated affair, with the keyboards having a more restricted role than what is often the case with bands operating inside of the part of the progressive metal universe that comes with references towards the Dream Theater school of the form. An album to seek out if a modernized variety of traditional progressive metal is generally interesting, and a guitar dominated example of this with a liberal influx of world music elements comes across as generally intriguing.

Olav "Progmessor" Björnsen, October 2023

Links:
https://ramageinc.net/
https://www.layered-reality.com/