Ravage Machinery's slogan is "everything that sounds good is worth listening to." I found out that the band members' musical tastes cannot be too wide, if judging by listening what's heard on their second demo 'Reigning Disease'.

The title track is a pounding, groovy thrasher. Musicwise, it feels like a tank driving over, until the whining melody on the chorus kind of stirs things up with some Gotherburgness. The clean vocals struggle to hit the right tones and are way too whiny. Mainly, okayish metalcore style shout 'n' grunt vocals are heard. 'No Control' begins with calm guitar fiddling, and enters into more prog-style soundscapes. The clean vocals sound much more fitting now. Then, the song drifts into groove metal world consisting of North American core and Gothenburgness. 'Obsolete' is a mid-paced North American new wave metal piece, featuring some clean woo-hoos. I think the debut demo's songs to be catchier than these three songs.

It sounds like the band can really groove out when beating out the heavier stuff, and the calmer parts are also well executed. The production is very clogged up when the heavy bits are heard. The clean vocals are the biggest drawback about this all. Then comes the unadventurous song writing, which simply takes some trendy genres and mixes 'em up. Putting it together, it sounds too eartbound at the moment. I would like to courage the band to search for more individual bits. I think this "metalcore meets Gothenburg" zone is getting really severely crowded.

Reviewed by Lane
09/13/2009 17:40