Raging Force

Raging Force was an unsigned Power Metal band from Germany from 1994-2006. As this is my first power metal band I’ve blogged about, I feel the need to confess that I’m not the biggest fan of power metal. Ok, not a fan at all. But thats the part of this project that really appeals to me, because normally if someone says power metal to me, I kinda just blow it off and don’t check ‘em out. Which is weird because I love the type of music that eventually helped shape what power metal is, like Dio, Priest and Maiden. I tend to dislike clean vocals more often than not though. Plus, maybe I just haven’t heard the good stuff yet; at any rate, we will see how Raging Force fares.

This will likely be a short entry as I cant seem to find any info on them and their official website doesn’t work. All I’ve got to work with here is Myspace and the metal archives. I find it amazing that a band is together for 12 years and doesn’t have any sort of web presence but I suppose they’ve been broken up for some time now. They have one self titled full length release froom 2005, one demo from 1999, and one EP from 2006.

The first two songs I listened to were from the 2006 EP, “Ashes”. So the first song, “Crystal Palace”, starts out with some bass that sounds very much like Tool. Then the vocals come in. And man, the vocals are bad, They’re so bad that I can’t help thinking the vocalist is this super nice guy who tries really hard and no one wants to let him down. So in that sense I feel really bad for hating it this much. But it’s really godawful. You really have to listen to it to understand what I mean. The guitar solo later on in the song isn’t bad, though. And I like Tool so the bass was nice.

The second song, “Gutter People Ain’t No Butterflies” (what?!), is more of the same, though the third song, “Clone”, which is from the full-length release rather than the EP is probably the best one of the four. It’s still got the terrible, terrible vocals, but I can get into the music a bit more than with the rest. The guitar, drums and bass are not the best I’ve heard but they’re not too bad. Better than I could do, anyway. (Side Note:I can barely do anything.)

I wonder how many bands are make or break based on who they have fronting the band. I’m assuming it’s pretty substantial. I don’t know if this band would’ve made it big, but a different vocalist would have helped a LOT. I hope you guys listen to the songs on the Myspace and let me know if I’m way off base. I really can’t stand it. Augh. Am I missing something? Raging Force is not going to make it anywhere near my iPod anytime soon. Though, I wish I knew why they broke up, as I wouldn’t mind seeing how the backing musicians would do with a different vocalist.

Raging Force on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/ragingforce

Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives: http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=47717