AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): RUIN — “PLAGUE TRANSMISSIONS: VOL. 2”

 

The California death metal band Ruin released their first demo in 1991, and then nearly a quarter-century later they revived and re-formed. Since 2015 they’ve released two albums (Drown In Blood and Human Annihilation), but a much greater number of short releases, including EPs and splits. They’ve gotten into the habit of periodically releasing compilations that collect these shorter works, and the latest of those is what we’re bringing you today.

Plague Transmissions: Vol. 2, which will be released by Horror Pain Gore Death Productions on July 24th, collects Ruin tracks from a 2018 EP (Into Endless Chasms), a 2018 split with Anthropic, a 2019 EP (Death Tomb), a 2020 split with Abysme (Rotting Madness), and a 2020 EP (Infested Death) — 18 tracks at all. And a more vile and ghastly administration of obliterating punishment you could hardly imagine.

 

 

HPGD says “Ruin needs no introduction”. And perhaps not. But on the off-chance that someone might wander into this post unaware of what they’re getting themselves into, a few words are in order, simply as a display of kindness and mercy from us, because you’ll get none of that from the music.

From the opening track, Ruin put on a shocking display of brute-force carnage and choking toxicity. They administer the beating and the aural poison through titanic, grotesquely distorted riffing, drumming you can feel in your spleen (as it ruptures), earthshaking bass pummeling, and one of the most spine-shivering and nausea-inducing displays of vocal malignance and mania that you could imagine.

They shift gears as they go. Depending upon the track, you might be subjected to methodical and remorseless sledgehammering thuggery, or the kind of punk romp you might get if elephants were juiced up in the mosh pit, or glacial apocalyptic dirges that will drag you by your hair through tar pits and into the suffocating depths of mass graves, or eruptions of boiling madness, eviscerating chaos, and juggernaut mauling.

But regardless of the tempo or the relative degree of insanity, the music is persistently bone-smashing and mind-mutilating. The word “crushing” barely begins to describe it. And the sonic torture is so unalloyed with any sense of hope or mercy that it seems the pure aural embodiment of hate, disgust, and horror.

Ruin do segment the carnage with radically contrasting bits which function as intros or outros, ranging from heavenly choirs and mesmerizing ambience to alien electronics, chilling vocal samples, and eerie piano keys (among other sensations). And they do inject doses of hallucinatory instrumentation within the songs, just to make the nightmares you will have even more likely to wake you up in cold sweats.

In a word, this comp is killer — as in serial killer. And that’s no lie.

 

HPGD recommends this new comp for fans of Abhorrence, Anatomia, Autopsy, early Bolt Thrower, Cenotaph, Cianide, Crematory, Demigod, Disma, early Grave, Rippikoulu, Rottrevore and Undergang. I might also throw Winter, Portal, and Primitive Man into that mix of references.

To repeat, Plague Transmissions: Vol. 2 will be available July 24th — on CD and as a digital download (with T-Shirts on offer too).

PRE-ORDER / PRE-SAVE:
https://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/plague-transmissions-vol-2
https://ffm.to/ruin

RUIN:
https://trdmc.bandcamp.com/music