Occasionally, pet projects and casual fun bands can take a very long time to gestate into something more serious and tangible. Spain’s Battering Ram has had quite a long journey to get to their self-released debut album Time Masters, starting from their formation in 2008 and their demos in the early 2010s.1 Over this time period, their ambitions have also grown. Evolved from just another thrash metal band, Time Masters is a sci-fi concept album looking to fuse epic heavy and power metal with technical thrash metal. How successful is Battering Ram in their goal?
Battering Ram’s fun sound leans more towards the heavy/power metal side than the thrash side. The riffage of Guillermo Marqués definitely borrows a lot from all of the above, though. The drumming of Benjamín Mateo has plenty of classic Watchtower influence here, alongside more classic fun thrash like Anthrax. Complementing the thrashy bits are heavy/power bands like Manowar and HammerFall. Tracks like “Immortality Fed by Death” show some thrashy bite, alongside some fat killer bass by Francisco Cabañas. The 10-minute almost-opener “Unexpected Events (The Beginning of the End)” is a bold choice, but it ends up panning out well.
Thrash and power metal both perform best at high velocity, and most of Time Masters has too little of it. The second half of the album picks things up with cuts like “Immortality Fed by Death (Unstoppable Train),” but they’re not quite strong enough to carry the entire album. The double interlude towards the end of the album is also a baffling decision, interrupting the flow between the album’s three strongest tracks. The bonus track being a base track (penultimate track, instead of the weird double interlude?) would’ve also directly upgraded the experience and album flow. The riff work is good and multifaceted, though, and the drums are very fun to listen to as well, providing lots of cool patterns and fills here and there. The instrumentation is really cool, but the vocals definitely need more work. David Ordás sings well on tracks like “Immortality Fed by Death,” but his performance is inconsistent throughout the album. They lack energy and range on tracks like 3 and 4. However, they do also improve as the album goes along (tracks 6, 7).
Despite its drawbacks, there are plenty of good pieces on Time Masters to work with. The guitars, drums, and bass all sound great and have great players behind them. The riffs are fun and have enough variety for the material, and the bass, in particular, in the first half of the album, is cranked loud and plays some really fun lines. There’s definitely a 3.0/Good! hidden in here, but the vocal inconsistencies, slight bloat, and general sluggish pace all unfortunately drag it down too much. The advantages do not outweigh the disadvantages, but the good things here are still very much visible. If you removed “The Persecuted (Back Again)” and both of the unwieldy two-in-a-row interludes (“The Prophecy,” “Armageddon Wars”), and added the CD bonus track “Wormhole (Dreaming Eutocia)” as the penultimate track, this would be a tight and fun album to replay.
Battering Ram has some good ideas, but throws too many things at the wall at the same time. If they can speed things up, improve the vocals, and tighten their songwriting in general, these guys can definitely have a good follow-up in store. As is, the album has a fun concept with some strong ideas, but it flows very unevenly. Running a tighter 40-minute ship, improving the production, and leveling up the vocals will go a long way. Time Masters is a rough but riffy proof of concept. With some ironing, Battering Ram is well on their way towards creating a fun power/thrash blend.
Rating: Mixed
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: WAV
Label: Self-Released
Websites: Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
Releases Worldwide: January 10th, 2026
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