The band BATTERING RAM comes from a small Swedish mining town of Filipstad. A place you never heard of, a place you've never been to and a place you will most likely never visit. Up there in the north Scandinavian woods, man is still man, life is easy, souls are still free, and the music is hard, hard as rock. The story unfolds in 2017 when the quartet was founded and emerging from the Nordic fairy tale woodlands of the forests among gnomes and trolls released their self-titled debut album in 2020. July 2022 brings us the second and latest studio release "Second to None". With already a growing reputation as a hard rocking, authentic, powerful live band, BATTERING RAM is focused on expanding their metal prowess to join the ranks of the heavyweights. This is a band in the likeness of JUDAS PRIEST, VOLBEAT and fellow Swedish hard rockers MUSTASCH, with straight-forward, high-energy, no nonsense old-school metal. The release is on CD and also a collector's item red vinyl on Uprising Records.

We open up with "What have I become", wonderful precise harmonies highlight this nice rocking, grooving raucous beat with classic riffs, reminiscent of early 80's POW, right in the kisser when "Ram you down" pulsating heavy riffs, and fist pumping guitar virtuoso of Jonas Edmark aided by the gravely and snarky vocals of Johan Hallstrom. Another pure rocker in "Pieces", nothing complex or complicated, hard-core riffs, nice guitar solo paired with a tight and balanced drum and bass backing. The album ends with "Battering Ram", another kicks your back side rocker with a teasing somber start before the boisterous vocals and guitar shredding riffs melt your headphones.

BATTERING RAM is a predicable hard rock band, their musical formula is not rocket science, the songs all have a catchy flow, they deliver as advertised, no holes bared throw back to 80's metal. Their songs all have a similar sound and orchestration and yet all have their own distinct sound and injection, if that makes any sense to you, it doesn't make sense to me, and I wrote it. WTF? I think where I'm going with this is, they have a great sound, period. Gigantic metal riffs, slick guitar solos, with strong down and dirty vocals. This album rocks and is a giant step forward for a band that comes from a region where they still wear Viking hats.