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After releasing a few splits, EPs, and demos, Ramesses finally releases their second full-length effort Taking the Curse, and proves that this band still has the ability to merge the Doom and Sludge musical styles together into one very dark, heavy, and sometimes haunting metal release. However, while the band is able to put together a release of this magnitude, the real question comes in as to whether the band has the ability to make this combination of styles actually worth the time to check it out, or if it just becomes another band that has the right ideas for experimentation, but ultimately cannot live up to the expectations these talents give off. Take the Curse does have it's moments that will grip the listener for a good amount of the time, but there are still moments that will come off more as tacked on or drawn out. Ramesses does manage to create some really dark music on this release that can sometimes just sound pure evil, like in the case of "Terrasaw", which is a very haunting track thanks to the guitars utilized after the sample of a woman crying, and the background gutteral vocals utilized at key moments of the track to build up the atmosphere of the song moreso. The only problem is that the gutteral vocals sound rather bad thanks to the production quality, almost as if they are muffled and just not natural. Aside that evil and haunting atmosphere, the band also can bring in a slight Egyptian feel to the music, which suits the band name perfectly obviously. The title track, "Take the Curse", as well as "Baptism of the Walked Dead", has guitar Sludge soaked guitar riffs that set the proper geographical atmosphere for the track, and really wind up keeping the song moving nicely. However, not all the songs do move as nicely as these two do. "Black Hash Mass" actually starts off as a very Satanic track thanks to audio clips dealing with Satan, as well as starts off as a pretty strong Black Metal track before everything slows down to rather bland music with very deep gutterals accompanying the general Sludge vocals. The song winds up feeling tacked on, as well as the hint of ambience at the very end. On top of that you have the simple interlude track "Vinho Dos Mortos" which is actually extremely boring and feels tacked on. While it does well as an interlude track that meshes both styles together, it composed only of the simplest guitar chords and random audio samples of speech throughout to keep the song from being an instrumental. While there are other tracks on here that have moments where things feel tacked on, it winds up simply being moments, whereas the good majority of the song itself is still enjoyable. Such is the case with the song "Hand of Glory" which can sometimes feel a bit drug along. One other thing that should be mentioned about Take the Curse is that practically every track on here has audio samples that start the song. With the exception of a few tracks, such as "Vinho Dos Mortos" which uses what sounds like audio samples during the song instead of at the start. The samples do wind up reflecting the lyrical content of the song, or, such as during the start of "Another Skeleton", wind up being some kind of Egyptian reference to reflect the band's name and Egyptian sound they often present in the guitars. The only problem with these is that while they are present on the album, they don't really do much to enhance it, even though they are often used to introduce a song before it starts. However, the question is whether they are needed. The closing track "Khali Mist" sounds great and is a highly enjoyable song that doesn't utilize an audio sample before the song starts, and greatly reflects the Egyptian influence in the musical composition the band brings. If the band had simply started more of the tracks like this one, without an introduction and a solid musical start to the song, perhaps some of the songs on here would grab the listeners intrest right from the start, but unfortunately in some of these cases, it leaves the listener uneasy at the start and causing him or her to actually work their way into the song before they actually enjoy it. So, with a some setbacks to the music, and a low production quality that leaves some of the additional vocal elements that would enhance the song sometimes coming off a bit distorted or simply illfitting to the music due to quality, Take the Curse does seem to have it's own little curse working for it, but at the same time, the music on this release is still rather interesting. The album is often quite dark and does it's job well of mixing both the Doom and Sludge elements, but in the end there is a bad mixture of songs that are so simple they become boring, or material that feels like the band almost forgot they were supposed to change the music up after a while. Take the Curse is worth a listen, but in the end, could have been better given the room for experimentation and some of the talent shown on the more stand out tracks of the album pointed out in this review. |
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