Vehemency
My previous encounter with this one-man black/thrash metal outfit was the seven inch split with Front Beast, but admittedly I do not remember much of Ruins’ side because I’ve listened to that piece of wax merely because of the other band. I might have to go back and give some exposure to the other half of the vinyl as well, considering how damn crushing the band sounds on Chambers of Perversion, an EP released last year on vinyl and later this year on CD via Negative Existence.
These nineteen minutes and seven relatively short tracks are pure vitriol. For the most part, tempo is kept at high levels, drums battering the usual thrash metal beats and guitar firing their power chord menace, not unlike an early Sodom record. The vocal output is propably the most distinct feature of Ruins: you could think of the high pitch of Werwolf (Satanic Warmaster) and Azgorh (Drowning the Light) and you are close to this maniac’s spewing that fits into the filthy, raw soundscape like a fist in the face. As implied, the riffs are simple but effective, and after the first few reckless pieces, there’s ”War in Heaven Part 4 (Megalomania)” which slows the pace a little and provides some very epic yet old school guitarwork. After that, the rapid hell is loose again, and continues until the very end.
There’s no way of recommending this to anyone else than those who still love to dwell in the very old school black / thrash metal traditions, where a proper studio production was more of a curse word. The compositional work here does not compromise, but it doesn’t even try as Ruins knows that good metal doesn’t always require anything truly innovative. Hellscourge’s recent debut Hell’s Wrath Battalion comes to my mind when listening to Chambers of Perversion, but I think that this EP surpasses that one, though both are good and, in fact, best records in this field I’ve heard this year.