Ylös raunioista / Risen From The Ruins

Can't say I was expecting a new album from Ranger this quickly considering they've become a two-piece, and I sure as hell wasn't expecting them to make 16 tracks worth of music, actually eight songs with versions sung in English and in their native Finnish language, with pretty serious lyrics about the state of the world. Thankfully, everything else on here is exactly what I would expect from Ranger: raw, energetic speed metal akin to Exciter and old Agent Steel, albeit with a more DIY production than last time to make it more punky and feel a lot like their old demos. Their choice to add Finnish-sung versions also makes me think of surmacore addicts Rytmihäiriö, and that shows up for most of the tracks on here like "Vallankumous(Revolution)", "Putka(Pigs)", and the ball-crushing "Supervalta (Abuse of Power)". However, the band actually experiments a good bit on the oddball track "Madot" (Worms), which has a much more psychedelic feel to it and even has clean female vocals, which goes to show that they are capable of more than feral shredding. Outside of that, this is the band returning to their roots while also stretching them out in a few new directions, and that makes it a quality release worth owning.