| CD REVIEW The Rampton Release Date |
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Band : The Rampton Release Date There’s not really a lot of info available about the background of this West Midlands UK trio, except that as youngsters, and during the ‘90s, guitarist Ray played with John Peel favourites yarrdstick (who also recorded a session Peel’s show), and drummer Tim recorded an album with Ultra Noise merchants Genital Deformities. With the addition of bassist Si, The Rampton Release Date (and yes, that “The” at the beginning is an issue for the band) was formed in 2005. After a couple of gigs in the Noise Rock scene and an early demo (2005’s My Dad’s A Spastik, My Life’s Fantastik), the band made itself noted by an absence from the stages [induced by accidents, broken necks, broken arms (suffered by different band members), and even the sectioning of one particular band member) more than anything else. But eventually things fell together again, and the band not only went back on the road for the occasional gig, but also recorded a couple of short demos (among which the late 2006 This Suicide Is Costing Me Money) which all received nice reviews from magazines and fanzines, in spite of being DIY efforts. In fact, Organ magazine hailed one of the demos as “Release Of The Week”! Like the forces of nature, it would be an inevitable fact of life that TRRD would eventually be picked up by a daring label, either before or after the band had recorded a full-length effort at the Panic Room studio in Evesham with the aid of Dave “dirty cop” Draper (which is exactly what happened, though I have no certainly of which event took place first), which would make the band’s songs available to the world at large through the ensuing 13-track album! There’s a weird schizophrenic atmosphere all over the album, induced in the first place by the disturbed high-pitch vocal stylings, and strengthened by the lyrics (even the album and some of the song titles – “Phone No’s Attitude & Drugs”, “I’m Surrounded”, “Don’t Suffocate Your Sister” – are indicateive of a certain disturbed nature), but also by the several movie soundtrack samples (of which the all-county search bullitin for an “homicidal maniac”, and that psychologist doing a resumé on mental disturbances are certainly the most important, but let’s not forget this guys asking his girl whether she loves him because he kills people, the woman stating the fact that her man hates her – and the wày she does it, or the cop telling his collegue to watch his step, because “…this one’s a nutter!”…nor that lengthy bit at the beginning of album closer “The Wrong Life” – taken from the popular British tv series Eastenders, if I ain’t mistaken) which you’ll find used in more than half of the tracks (only 5 have no samples used in ‘em at all). Musically, the band aparently likes to keep things rather simple and repetitive, which works out wonderfully well with the “psychotic” nature of things already told about! You can check out a couple of songs at myspace.com/theramptonreleasedate (3 mp3-files – one of which only has a movie sample, that of the psychologist in this case – plus an additional video for “The Wrong Life”, that of a demo take though). Enough to make you curious enough about the rest of their material, or make you hate ‘em! I think that with this band, it’s either way or none…and I’m definitely on the positive side of the guys (even if not to the point of exhaltation)! 88/100 Tony. |