### Ram-Zet: Neutralized

#### 04/03/10 || GardensTale

These guys are a strange brew. Their first and third albums never really stuck with me, but I played “Escape” to death, so any comparisons drawn will mostly be with that album. Although, Ram-Zet does deserve a lot better than a better-or-worse-than-“Escape” breakdown. They’re not affiliates to the site for nothing, you know!

For those not familiar with Ram-Zet utterly unique musical style, let me break it down for you here:

Noun: schizophrenia (uncountable) 1. (pathology) A psychiatric diagnosis denoting a persistent, often chronic, mental illness variously affecting behavior, thinking, and emotion 2. (informal) Any condition in which disparate or mutually exclusive activities coexist

This up here? Both the definitions? That’s where Ram-Zet resides. The music can be broken down to a gothic-tinged industrial black metal with haunting passages on violin or piano as well as pummeling, mechanical riffs straight out of the machine. The polar opposite approach returns in the vocals, with Sfinx providing clean vocals that range from soothing to menacing, and Zet croaking hoarse screams that can sound desperate as well as angry, and often do so at the same time. Psychosis and mental illness are also the most common lyrical themes Ram-Zet explores, so the schizophrenia definitions fit in more ways than one.

So, now that the band has been handled, why not handle the actual album? Great idea!

The first thing the fans will notice is the cleaner production compared to the earlier work. As usual, this has its ups and downs; while the instrumentation is more audible and can thus be appreciated better, it does take away a bit of grit from the overall sound, which is a shame for a band that leans so heavily on atmosphere. I’d have liked them to retain a bit of grit, but the songwriting does make up for a bit.

Because the versatility has taken a leap, and considering the stuff I heard from the band before, that’s upping the ante by a fair amount. They have never been too shy for versatility to begin with, you see, but a better mixture of their various elements coupled with stellar songwriting puts this piece a shoulderlength ahead of its predecessors.

I do need to linger on the songwriting for a while, because the way the songs flow is absolutely spot on. “Infamia” is a mechanical pummeling, like a car tumbling down a cliff, sometimes lingering on a ridge before plunging down into the depths again, while the following “I Am Dirt” features Sfinx at her most psychotic, giving the song a sense of haunting madness. Each song manages to convey a flow and a feel of its own, while all of it is so purely Ram-Zet it’s really an amazing feat. Extrapolating, each song has a proper face of its own, and considering Ram-Zet play with different atmospheres continually it’s really an homage to the songwriting that nothing flows into each other or feels disparate.

Going into the separate instruments would be a logical next step in the review, but frankly, there’s little point. This doesn’t revolve around the technical ability of the musicians, it’s about what’s beyond the sum of its parts. All you need to know is that all the musicians involved here are more than competent enough to pull off everything they have set out to do.

There’s no reason whatsoever anyone should not give Ram-Zet a try with their new disc. Fans might be taken aback momentarily by the lack of grit in the production, but the spot-on songwriting, excellent performance specifically of Sfinx and Zet on vocal duties, and once again the great execution of ideas and atmosphere make this another great album by this unique little band. Listen to it or suffer the consequences.

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Ascendance
- Website: www.ram-zet.com
- Band
- Sfinx: vocals
- Zet: vocals, guitars
- Karoline Amb: keyboards
- Lars: bass
- Kuth: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Infamia
- 02. I am dirt
- 03. 222
- 04. Addict
- 05. God don’t forgive
- 06. Beautiful pain
- 07. To ashes
- 08. Requiem