It’s been six years since I heard much from progressive metallers, Ramage Inc. The last time I saw the Scots, they were part of the opening Thursday line-up at Bloodstock in 2017. Whilst they picked at my interest, they presented as a little jumbled and over complex.
It’s been even longer since I’ve listened to them, but their fourth long player was offered up and I took it. Sometimes, you make decisions in the heat of the moment that you regret. Humanity has Failed is one of them.
It’s not a terrible release by any standard, and it’s certainly well played; if you want something to carry you through a dull evening, then it’ll certainly help pass the time, for boy is it long. Mind-numbingly long in fact. Incredibly overblown in parts, at times hugely theatrical and dramatic, this is Iron Maiden circa 2022 long. The band’s style is, for all its promised complexity, rather pedestrian, and reliant on one main style. 15 songs that drain nearly 80 minutes of your life. Flickers of interest are quickly extinguished by some yawn inducing passages that simply do nothing to excite.
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And then there’s the lyrical content and theme. About as unoriginal as you can get today, with virtually every metal band making social commentary about the way the world is falling apart. Let’s have a concept album with themes about the state of the planet, climate change, humanity in general. Yeah, great. Another one. It’s largely predictable, at times pompous, and quite frankly, boring.
Although the tracks are, in the main, reasonably short, they don’t feel like it. Each song has huge layers, multiple vocals, as well as the Devin Townsend style of Ramage which doesn’t help if you aren’t a fan of the Canadian, which I’m not. Songs like “Barriers” are just too much of an aural challenge. How do you work out what to listen to you when it all comes at you in such dramatic, chaotic style? The title track is dire. A misguided collection scraped from the leftovers of Townsend and Gojira. It’s simply lifeless. Can you cope with the bombastic chaos of “Fallen”, the starting point on this album? One that will either turn you on or off. If you fall into the latter, then at least you get the chance to bail early. Some of us have had to listen to the formulaic repetition more than once you know.
Whilst some will inevitably describe this as a masterpiece, or a challenging piece of thoughtful, perfectly constructed progressive metal that prompts questions, and provides the cerebral storm necessary, others are likely to call it excessive, overwhelming, a struggle to comprehend, or maybe just a little bit pretentious. You take your pick. For me, it’s magnolia coloured, a standard featureless release that is inoffensive, but doesn’t stir any excitement. If you want to find quality progressive metal, then look around, for there are plenty of better bands to discover.
I don’t recall the band being particularly exciting to watch, but that was six years ago. On this latest release, they switch between fleeting moments of interest to passages of tedious progressive metal that rarely holds the attention. I was wandering on the first play, distracted on the second, and struggling on the third run. There wasn’t a fourth. No amount of washing up lasts this long.
Perhaps, if you are a fan of this band, then this is what you’ve been waiting for since 2018’s Under the Skin. Whether that wait has been worth it is of course a personal perspective. For me Humanity has Failed is underwhelming in virtually every aspect. Perhaps Ramage Inc Has Failed would have been a better title?
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Humanity has Failed is out on 27th October
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