Ram Against Review
Ram
Against
Metal Blade Records
2026
I’ve flirted with the Swedish Metal band, RAM, for the past several years. I’ve enjoyed listening to a few tracks here and there while bouncing around YouTube, but I never really dove headfirst into an entire album until now.
The band will release their latest album, “Against,” a few weeks courtesy of Metal Blade Records. My first reaction was, “Ahh, cool, I’ll finally get the chance to listen to an entire album from beginning to end.” What I wasn’t expecting was for the band to transport me straight back to 1984.
I’d love to be cute, coy and wordsmith left and right, but honestly, that would be a disservice to this latest effort from RAM. Let’s keep it simple and straightforward, just like the album itself. This is pure Heavy Metal. There aren’t any little detours where the band suddenly borrows from some other subgenre just for the hell of it. Not even a little. What I hear instead are huge late-’70s/early-’80s Metal vibes - early Judas Priest, Scorpions, Mercyful Fate - the kind of stuff that used to come blasting out of your speakers when you were young and had absolutely no interest in anything that wasn’t LOUD.
There’s a sincere ode to the past running through this album, but “Against” never feels like some tired nostalgia trip or a band trying to recreate something that’s already been done. Somehow, it feels incredibly fresh. A big part of that is the production. It’s organic as hell, and that’s something I appreciate more and more these days. There’s no overly polished, surgically cleaned-up feeling here. It literally feels like I’m sitting in the studio with the band while they’re playing. You can almost hear the room around them, and for an oldhead like me, that goes a long way.
If you fancy yourself a fan of old-school, pure Heavy Metal, RAM’s “Against” is an album you’re not going to want to miss. The aggression is here, but it’s never overdone. It’s just right. The band knew exactly what they wanted when they walked into that studio, and it shows. They dialed it in and said, “Let’s make one of those killer Metal albums that got us into this music in the first place.”
And that’s exactly what I hear.
The riffs, lead breaks and melodies scream just as loudly as the falsettos when they hit. There’s no need for gimmicks, no need to chase whatever happens to be fashionable this week. Just Heavy Metal played with conviction, the way it was meant to be played.
I still can’t quite get over the fact that this album is being released in 2026. Somewhere along the way, RAM managed to reach backward, grab a fistful of 1984, and drag it into the present without beating it to death with modern production tricks.
This is certainly for us oldheads who still put value into being an original Rock Warrior. And I don’t mean that as a slight or some “back in my day” bullshit. The production, the arrangements and the musicianship simply don’t feel like they came from today’s assembly line. This feels thought out. It feels intentional. More importantly, it feels like the band made the record they wanted to make rather than the record they thought they were supposed to make.
For me, that’s a big part of the magic. Don’t pass this one by, check it today and get it pre-ordered, it’s legit!
Standouts – “Night Blade”, “Ghost Emperor”, “1984”, “Rising Again” and “Abbatoir”.