Ramallah – Kill A Celebrity
Website: Offical Site
The Inside Pulse:
Ramallah is the side project of “White Trash” Rob Lind of Boston’s Blood for Blood fame. Back in ’02 when he released the first EP, it was a project without a band written and recorded Trent Reznor style. It was an artistic project of passion. This new project was produced in the same way and now that Rob has even more of a reason to speak up in light of current events, he’s done his vision justice. This is a straight forward attack on political ills and the pop culture society we live in. I can explain it no better than Rob, “We live in terrible times. People should be terrified and horrified and disgusted at what’s going on in this world and in their name every single day. Ramallah is here to shove it all right down their throats.” Open up and say ahhh!
Positives:
The Beatles have never been covered in such a useful way. I have to admit that I never thought such blatant keyboard use on a hardcore album could be done so well. There’s been a trend recently of ‘artists with a voice’ who seem to loose focus of writing good music also. Ramallah has gotten both of these down. Musically this is just great old school hardcore with some bone shattering breakdowns. Included with the old school is some well worked experimentation with metalcore, metal, nu-metal, punk rock, ethereal backdrops and even some hard rock.
Negatives:
There are some annoying time signatures in a few tracks. Though I love the song, “Just Walk Away” steals a few verses from Blood for Blood. The content is fantastic but I would have hoped that Rob would’ve kept B4B separate from Ramallah. Multiple tracks are straight swipes from the EP with title changes and some added verses. The album is a rework of the EP.
Cross Breed:
Blood for Blood lyrics, Biohazard drums, Fury of Five, Soil, Madball, Death Before Dishonor, Agnostic Front, Downset, One King Down, Lacuna Coil backgrounds, Evanescence style choral melodies and Type O Negative keyboards. Diverse? Just a little.
Reason to Buy:
If you care about the state of the world and society as a whole, you need to listen to this album. If the state of the world right now isn’t enough to boil your blood, listening to this album will do it for you. In my many years as a hardcore fan, I’ve never had the poignancy of a hardcore song damn near drive me to tears, let alone two. “Just Walk Away” and “A Day In The Life” must be recognized! Regardless of the hardcore genre, I have never heard a more compelling and challenging entire record in my life.
