Rampage - Veil of Mourn (1988)^{Release ID: 24475}

Melbourne thrash metal trio Rampage are definitely one of those bands that you would only have come across if you were heavily involved in the underground Australian metal scene back in the latter part of the 1980's & first half of the 1990's. They released just two demo tapes & a single full-length album across a four-year life span but wouldn't manage to achieve much commercial success & eventually decided to call it quits two months after vocalist/guitarist George Mitrov found God & promptly left Rampage in May 1988. The Spotify age has seen the band's legacy being revitalized for a new generation of Aussie metalheads to indulge in though & the question is now whether that commitment is actually worth the effort or not. My recollections of Rampage's "Veil of Mourn" album weren't that great if I'm being honest but I have been wondering whether a little context might see it taking on some additional importance. My recent revisits to the two Rampage demo tapes have done nothing for my confidence but I did recall "Veil of Mourn" sounding a little different to those two releases so I decided to grit my teeth & battle my way through one of the less understood records from a time when the Aussie thrash scene was still in its infancy.

Neither of Rampage's 1986 "Acid Storm" or 1987 self-titled demo tapes received a lot of record label attention which was a critical ingredient if you were going to take things to the next level at the time. Young bands rarely funded their own full-length albums & some of that came down to a lack of belief & understanding as much as it did anything else because the option was always there. But the lack of hype didn't stop Rampage who self-funded & self-produced their debut album in 1988 with a run of just 600 vinyl copies being manufactured after the recordings were completed. A gentleman going by the name of Rock was responsible for assisting the band through those sessions & I can't say that I'm surprised that he hasn't gone on to bigger things because the production job on "Veil of Mourn" is nothing short of a dog's breakfast, failing to even compete with that of the band's two demos, particularly the self-titled one which sounded much better than this mess which comes across more like a crude rehearsal recording than an album. The guitars are much too far back in the mix in comparison to the bass guitar while the cymbals possess a boomy white-noise characteristic. The performances are really quite loose too with guitarist George Mitrov's pitchy high-pitched vocals regularly seeing my face struggling to prevent a cringe. Rampage were far from a well-oiled machine at the time but, to be fair, they had other things going for them.

Rampage's lineup for the album was a little different to the one that had recorded the "Acid Storm" demo tape two years earlier. Original guitarist Mark Bailey had left the scene by this stage with Mitrov taking on the guitar duties on top of the vocals while drummer Rick Sorrentino had been replaced by future Hobbs Angel of Death skinsman Bruno Canziani. Former Tyrus bass player David Frew (who would join Canziani in Hobbs Angel of Death during the mid-1990's) was still onboard but it's worth mentioning the differences in sound between the two demo tapes & the one we receive on "Veil of Mourn", despite it containing a few of the same tracks as the demos in "Acid Storm", "Sinister at Sunrise" & "Producers Edge". The "Acid Storm" demo saw Rampage hovering somewhere between thrash metal & traditional heavy metal while the self-titled saw that heavy metal component heading more towards power metal. There isn't any heavy metal on "Veil of Mourn" while the power metal influence is limited to "Sinister at Sunrise". This time Rampage have expanded their sound with a very interesting progressive rock influence which sees them hitting on some highly unusual song & riffs structures & it's this element that would become the band's calling card. On the evidence here, I'd have to suggest that Rampage had been listening to a fair quantity of Voivod records in the lead-up to these sessions as I can clearly here the Canadian progressive metallers impact here, although I wouldn't suggest that it's enough to see me reaching for a dual tag as the thrash side of the trio's sound still sits comfortably in the ascendency.

Despite the intriguing complexities of Rampage's new sound though, I have to admit that I've once again struggled with this release in much the same way that I did with the two demo tapes. Yes, the band's sound certainly keeps you on your toes by maintaining the electricity of a live performance throughout but the obvious production & performance issues are simply too much to overcome the majority of the time. It's only really closing track "Transgression to Sin Under the Invisible Empire" that sees me able to look past the album's inadequacies & achieve true enjoyment but that's not to say that Rampage didn't come close on material like opener "Terrortaphobia (Fear of Giving Birth to a Monster)", the previously mentioned "Acid Storm" & prog thrasher "Autopsy". The other half of the album falls well short of the mark but has somehow managed to keep my attention in a similar way to a fatal car crash. You don't really want to see the horrors inside but you struggle to look away nonetheless. It's for this reason that "Veil of Mourn" has managed to avoid a more embarassing rating but I'd still suggest that the simpler "Acid Storm" demo is perhaps the release that saw Rampage coming the closest to producing a genuinely rewarding experience. Even it didn't quite get there though so I can't say that I'm disappointed to have finished my exploration of Rampage's quietly spoken back catalogue. While I seriously doubt that I'll be returning to them in the future, I do give Rampage some credit for producing one of the more unusual debut albums in Aussie thrash history.

For fans of Bezerker, Tyrus & Midas Touch.