Ragestorm – The Thin Line Between Hope and Ruin

One of the trademarks of the Thrash Metal genre as a whole that has always been particularly close to my heart is a simple one: To me, the genre has often been synonymous with provocative attitudes and criticism of the societies in which we reside, both socially, culturally and politically (and, when done right, wrapped up neatly in great and simple, yet powerful, riffs).

Italian quintet Ragestorm obviously seem to agree with me in the sense that their newest (as well as first) full-length release consists of ten tracks (and one interlude) worth of global awakening-pills.

The album is aptly entitled The Thin Line Between Hope and Ruin and focuses on the destructive results of the materialism that encompasses the western world. The band are very methodical about this, managing to both point out several of the biggest sinners, offer a solution and even admit to several problems with said solution. In short, if Ragestorm was a political party, I would vote for them.

Musically however, the band is a different story. Having been founded back in the early 2000’s, the five Italians apparently made a (then very popular) choice of playing a mixture of Death and Thrash Metal – Taking the aggression from the latter and incorporating it over the systematic power and advanced riffs of the former. While not a bad decision per se, it sadly causes the band to adopt a very ‘generic’ sound, one that I find almost interchangeable with many other bands of that time (or era, if you prefer)

Overall this means that Ragestorm has a wide range of very good reasons as to why you should give tracks such as ”Moloch” as spin – All of these being lyrical rather than musical. I suppose that what I am getting to is that the fifty minutes present within this record is better enjoyed when analyzed than spinned outright.

Recommended for fans of Megadeth and Artillery.

http://www.ragestorm.it/