Review: Ramage Inc. – Humanity Has Failed

Style: Progressive Metal, Groove Metal (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: early Devin Townsend, Gojira, Strapping Young Lad
Review by: Christopher
Country: UK
Release date: 27 October, 2023

Dark Side of the Moon—often cited as the best album ever made—is just forty-three minutes long. Thriller? Forty-two minutes. Revolver? A mere thirty-five minutes. These shorter runtimes were mostly a byproduct of technological limitations, and nowadays such brevity is unnecessary and, therefore, rarer. But perhaps we’re worse off for that; such constraints on length forced bands to be more discerning about their finished product and save their weaker compositions for the inevitable expanded remaster four decades later. 

Humanity’s Last End is the fourth full-length from Edinburgh-based progressive metal group Ramage Inc., named after founder, vocalist and guitarist Bryan Ramage (the same logic could’ve given us Knopfler & Co., or Harrison, Lennon, McCartney & Starr: Rock Musicians & LSD Enthusiasts Ltd. I’m kind of coming around to this naming convention). Clearly influenced by Devin Townsend, with a strong injection of Gojira, strong vocals, thudding grooves and headbanging riffs are the sound du jour here.

That Townsendian influence is most present in the vocals. When Ramage lets loose with more belting cleans and fry screams, it’s like you’re listening to Terria or Accelerated Evolution for the first time again. At other junctures he goes for a more nu metal delivery, oddly redolent of Korn’s Jonathan Davis, as on “Barriers”—often he manages both at once (see “Barriers” again). Instrumentally, the Devy vibe remains but refracted through a groovier and somewhat deathier lens, a là Gojira and, let’s face it, Strapping Young Lad; the addition of symphonic—mostly brass—accompaniment helps refine those more obvious influences into a well-defined sound.

The Townsendian parallels multiply: guest vocalists Lisa Mari Lathwell and Donna Easton lighten proceedings on a number of tracks, Ramage’s answer to Anneke and Che; “Nothing to Fear” is overtly Strapping Young Lad influenced, “Unbalanced” is a choral Devy vibe filtered through a prog death lens, and “Live Each Day” takes me back to “Canada” from Terria. Ramage Inc. are one of the more interesting Devin-inspired bands out there, and they offer more than mere worship: the frequent use of harmonics and pick scrapes is pure Gojira as is the lyrical focus on ecological issues; a few moments of folky Phrygian scales and world music standards (“Dune Future” and “Time Won’t Heal”) recall the likes of Orphaned Land.

The British film critic Mark Kermode is fond of pointing out that Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi masterwork 2001: A Space Odyssey takes you from the dawn of mankind to the birth of a new species in one-hundred-and-forty minutes, and so more frivolous films like Sex and the City 2 have no excuse for running equally as long. That’s right, we’re pulling the trigger on the intro theme: Humanity Has Failed is seventy-seven minutes long—that’s longer than Devin Townsend’s magnum opus Deconstruction. Hell, it’s nearly double the length of Dark Side of the Moon. 

Simply put, you have to be making something truly special to justify such a runtime, and I don’t think Ramage Inc. will object to me saying that Humanity Has Failed doesn’t rub shoulders alongside Deconstruction. Realistically, Humanity Has Failed should end with the epic ten minute track “When All The Lights Go Out”, but there are four more songs after this and they feel a touch superfluous. Indeed, there are a number of shorter tracks—”Heat Waves”, “Unbalanced” and “Call of the Wild”—that feel more like interludes than fully realised songs, and it’s here that some of the excess should be excised. 

With strong compositions, a great sense of groove, and truly brilliant vocal performances, there’s a fantastic album buried within Humanity Has Failed but unfortunately it’s diminished by enough bloat to keep Pepto-Bismol producers in business for a month. Ramage Inc.’s sound may not be the most original but they’re better than mere imitators, and the only real fix I can recommend is the confidence to self-edit, and that’s an issue they share with their, and my, favourite musician.

Recommended tracks: Humanity Has Failed, Time Won’t Heal, When All The Lights Go Out
You may also like: Charlie Griffiths, Omnerod, Monolith Zero, The Offering
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Metal-Archives page

Label: Layered Reality Productions – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Ramage Inc. is:
– Bryan Ramage (vocals, guitars)
– Allan Forsyth (guitars)
– Marcin Buczek (bass)
– Paul Hameed (drums)