Dragonforce – Inhuman Rampage

Not being a huge fan of power metal, I heard Dragonforce for the first time with no preconceived thoughts of what they would sound like. It was really a fluke that I stumbled across their music video for their single “Through the Fire and Flames“, but after watching the clip once through I was stunned by the skill level of guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman. The track starts off with a spanish style opening riff and quickly jumps into hyper mode as the rest of the band kick in furiously and fast. The song continues along at the same hyper pace with over the top guitar solo’s, 80’s hair band vocals, thrashing drums, vibrant keys and solid bass lines before breaking down into a full blown guitar duel. Herman and Sam battle it out shredding through hot licks at lightning speed in the middle of a song and somehow they make it work.

While I was intrigued enough to warrant a purchase, I was totally disappointed when I was able to sit down with the full album. The first track, which is the aforementioned single, was extended on the album version and clocking in at just over 7 minutes the song started to get old before it was even over. The rest of the album follows through identically and as amazing as the guitar playing is, there’s only so much you can take before it all sounds repetitive track after track. Credit definitely must be given where its deserved and the guitar playing is quality, but the song writing really lacks in diversity and creativity. The shredding of the guitars take centre stage as the focus of each track and the songs all seem to be written around the insane guitar solo’s. While neat at first, this causes the songs suffer as a whole as the melody and the vocals always take a back seat to the guitar work. Dave Mackintosh pounds away on the drums just as fast as anything Herman or Sam can play on guitar, but his drumming never really strays from the one beat that he has perfected so well. This one beat leads us to song after song of the exact same drum pattern with only minor variations and again it starts to get really dull early on in the album.

As a whole Inhuman Rampage isn’t a very good album, vocally ZP Theart does his job and fits the sound of the band while singing themes of fantasy. Vadim Pruzhanov adds a slight bit of change and an extra dimension with his work on the keyboards but really everything is second to the shred of the guitar. While there is a softer ballad (Trail of Broken Hearts), Inhuman Rampage sounds much of the same throughout the album and doesn’t have enough diversity in its song structures to have any real lasting appeal. Go HERE, watch the music video until your bored of it and give this album a miss.