 We will let the fans and reviews speak for us:
Ratchet is new. We drink a bottle of wine for every new song we write....
"Thanks ratchet for solving my annoying neighbor issues"
-Ratchet CD Buyer
" Earlier this year, a hard rock band from northern California called Zen Vendetta claimed the $10,000 grand prize in the Original Music Contest, and now another group of guitar wielding boys from the bay area have taken MakeAStar by storm. Ratchet won the Best Song – Duo or Band contest with their song "Now You Know.", outpacing the votes of West Virginia based soundtrack and experimental group DC Project. Ratchet then scored a double victory as their lead guitarist Ty Kaufman won the first Best Song - Instrumental contest with his fantastic guitar solo he called "Old School."
- MakeAStar.com
"Now You Know is an excellent metal track with outstanding versatile vox which command you to take notice, awesome guitars that take you on a journey to metal mayhem, solid percussion that leaves no prisoners, and heaps of attitude. Extremely cool indeed"
-soundclick.com
"Metalocalypse" -soundclick.com
"even from across the preference aisle (we)must offer up some overdue props to this track.." - soundclick reviewer
Full Reviews - Unedited
Ratchet - More
Ratchet step up with another rock song of the metallic variety. Interestingly though, it's a 3/4 song, which is not exactly what you would expect from metal, so how does it fair?
Initially the guitars strike 3 chords and then hold along with some sustained drum movement before the very heavy beat comes in smashing away at the symbols and the guitars hit a very heavy riff. The whole feeling is very slow moving but extremely punchy. The verse follows next and with a sense of a slightly lighter arrangement. The drums play a more standard structured beat and everything else is that little bit softer. The vocal melody is nice and simple but brings out a lot more of the feeling in the notes of the tune then was in the introduction.
The chorus comes piling in next and it's actually very catchy! The drums provide perfect support with a nice trippy and yet fluid movement. The vocals layer and swell and the almost arena rock feeling comes along with them.
The post chorus is basically a few screams, but this shifts the notes enough to go back around from the verse again. Everything is pretty much the same the second time around, but the rewarding chorus gives it all a little extra taste of direction. After a double of the post-chorus we go in to the interesting bridge.
The durms move nicely underneath to add a trippy feeling to the spacey echoing guitars. The melody and sounds become almost sarcastically mellow, thereby providing a dream-scene like effect that works an absolute dream. The real winner in all of this, though, is the bass that moves everything quietly via some careful walking notes.
The final chorus follows and runs out with some loudness and shouted lyrics that punch up the sound all the way into it's broken down ending. A few tanoy-sounding spoken vocals reverb just out of understandable range as the song slowly slips away into reverb. The nice sharp ending with just the vocals left for a few seconds was a nice touch.
So, the mix was an improvement on usual. The guitars felt less obtrusive in this song. The bass maintained a very light sound throughout, but this aided it in leading the tune along. It was a punchy and clear mix for certain with a perfect use of all the light production elements available.
The performances, from all involved, sounded better than before as well. The vocals were much sharper to the notes than usual and the drums provided a more interesting support when given a 3/4 time signature playground to go crazy in. Bass and guitar work was as sharp as ever.
So, all in all, this was more to my taste than usual. The catchy chorus and variations in arrangement kept things moving, and the 3/4 beat was a good little change from the usual. The performance shone through as a real item of perfection and, I've got to say, I think this one's ready for the radio. The sound of the band is tight and the writing just keeps getting better every time I hear Ratchet.
More great stuff. Very impressed!
-Howard Billington
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Press Release 