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Ram-Zet
began as a one-man project in 1998 by Zet, who had been playing
in various metal bands in Norway before realizing his own vision
of how music should be done. He also has worked with the former
Artch-singer Eric Hawk (MFM). After
the release of "Pure Therapy", Ram-Zet began playing
shows in and around Norway and writing new material. The band
once again recorded the album at their own Space Valley Studio
by themselves. It was mixed by Mikko Karmila at
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In
the beginning Zet did everything by himself, from writing the
songs to recording his own demos. It was in the summer of 1999,
when Solem joined the band on bass. At first, he was only a hired
studio musician, but became so excited about the stuff Zet was
writing that he joined the band as a full time member soon after
the first demo was released in autumn 1999. After trying out several
drummers, Zet and Solem ended up with Küth right before the
recording of the band's debut, "Pure Therapy" (released
in Sept. 2000). 
Both
Küth and Solem come from various backgrounds, Solem has been
playing with for example Ronnie Le Tekro (T.N.T. and Vagabond)
and Jorn Lande (Vagabond) whereas Küth is the drummer for
the Norwegian power metal outfit Mustang. Zet sees the variety
in the musicians' backgrounds as one of the strongest assets of
Ram-Zet's sound. Combining various elements such as the rage of
black metal to the mechanized rhythms of industrial (and a lot
of other styles such as progressive elements), the band creates
a flawless hybrid that not only amazes with it's ability to maintain
a stylistic integrity but also by it's genre-bending ingeniousity.
Ram-Zet's way of using different noises and loops adds a weird,
psychotic atmosphere to the proceedings… The band has not been
content with using only synthesizers as they also have a violinist
and have used a real choir in the recording of "Pure Therapy".
Finnvox
and mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox. "Escape" is
even deeper a trip to the deep, psychotic realm of Ram-Zet's world.
Everything they did on the first album, has been taken one logical
step further. The fact that Zet has had a complete line-up around
him playing shows and rehearsing the material shines through as
the output on "Escape" is even tighter than before.
This is far from the dull monotony a lot of other bands using
industrial flavorings usually end up. Zet's psychotic vocals are
more imposing than ever before, Sfinx's and Sareeta's beautiful
vocals + the violin gracefully color the guitar melodies while
the rhythm-section blasts incredibly juicy rhythmics, complemented
by the occasional sample-loop or some other weird noise, adding
to the overall intriguing musical hybrid that is Ram-Zet. Intricate,
unique and with a hint of pure extremity.