Ram release Against tomorrow, 9 October, through Metal Blade Records. Eleven tracks, and three of them are already out as videos.
Three videos before a record is a lot for a band at this level, and it tells you what Metal Blade thinks it has. Abattoir, Ghost Emperor and Night Blade all went up on the label's channel in the run up, which is the treatment a label gives a record it expects to sell beyond the existing audience.
The tracklist runs Obsession, Ghost Emperor, One vs. All, Abattoir, Out of Control, Leaving, Against, Night Blade, Rising Again, 1984 and The Final Hour. The title track sits in the middle rather than at either end, which for a heavy metal record is a deliberate refusal of the usual shape.
One line-up note worth having. Oscar Carlquist sings, Harry Granroth plays guitar and Morgan Petterson plays drums, and all three have been there since 1999. The bass is the seat that moves: Desekrator is the sixth man to hold it, in since this year after Tobias Petterson left.
They are from Gothenburg, a city whose export is melodic death metal, and they have spent twenty seven years playing none of it.