DragonForce - Inhuman Rampage

As the interested reader of my blog has surely found out, I was at the Volkshaus in Zurich on Friday, December 7th Black Crusade. Yeah, what a great evening

As a "new discovery" on my part, I could Dragonforce turn off that evening. Dragonforce? "What a shitty name," I thought to myself beforehand and I don't think the name is much better today, but it doesn't make the sound. So I'm standing in the concert, full of anticipation of what the next band will be, and a bunch of people stumble onto the stage, armed with two (!) guitars, the usual bass and drums and a keyboard. Keyboards?! "Brrrrrrr, I think I'll go get a beer," flashed through my head and the Asian man in his white silk shirt didn't exactly improve my first impression. "Well, listen to a few bars..." Holy shit, the boys are going...!!!!

Should there ever be Golden Ax Film, this is the right soundtrack. Epic and at the same time so weird that you could see this as a nod to previous video games. Weird guitar effects can be heard that could have come from Steve Vai's hands, only much shorter and worked into the songs in such a way that I had to listen in amazement at first. Dragonforce from China, New Zealand, Ukraine, England and South Africa is one of the bands that struck me when it came to a style as hated as this Speed ​​metal even know how to please. There are hardly any guitarists as fast as the duo Li/Totman (also in this genre) and so today I treated myself to the album «Inhuman Rampage».

I really can't explain myself why I like the band so much. Or maybe it's just the fact that there's a band out there that can pound away such arcs of melody at breakneck speed without arousing the slightest suspicion that the melodies are getting lost. Ultra-fast guitar runs that sound like they came out of some arcade hall in the late 80s, hypersonic drums that grind everything down and sound effects from another planet. Warp speed sucks. And if you pay attention, you can hear little delicacies in many tracks, including a few sounds from Pac-Man in the ingenious opener «Through the fire and flames»

Metal with keyboards is usually an absolute horror to me, but the keyboard player here is always available for one or the other crazy solo, although on this disc you can never be so sure what the keyboard is and what the guitar sound is turned on by the effects device is. Every sound hole, no matter how small, in the eight compositions is closed with some kind of effects that often remind of video game noises. As a long-time player you feel at home there ... Total sensory overload
The singer doesn’t sound very different from legions of colleagues either, but unlike many others, he really masters his subject and doesn’t constantly play through the songs in the highest notes, as if you were stepping into them.

After seven songs on high speed, a ballad was chosen as the last track. This, however, ruthlessly reveals the weaknesses that previously could be concealed by going full throttle and tons of effects: As technically brilliant as the two guitarists may be, neither of them have that great feeling. As soon as it goes into the slower realms, the whole thing suddenly sounds totally irrelevant and the solos, which are slowed down in tempo, pass you by in terms of colour, power and really simply irrelevant. And here it shows who is really a gifted guitarist and who is just an outstanding technician. In addition, «Trail Of Broken Hearts» is so cheesy that it almost starts to slime out of the speakers...

But all in all an absolutely recommendable band and album, let's see what the future will bring - the force will be with you, Dragon!

Tracklist:

1. Through The Fire And Flames
2. Revolution Death Squad
3. Storming The Burning Fields
4. Operation Ground and Pound
5. Body breakdown
6. Cry For Eternity
7. The Flame Of Youth
8. Trail Of Broken Hearts

DragonForce - Through the Fire and Flames (Official Video)

Dragonforce - Operation Ground and Pound