Review: My Ruin

My Ruin
“The Horror of Beauty”
(Century Media)

The old question asks, “How many grooves on a record?”  The question is meant to deceive, but the answer is two, one continual groove on each side.  The same could be said to be true of My Ruin’s new album, it’s one big continuous groove, man; a real king-sized groove.  There’s a Philadelphian physician of some small notoriety, Dr. Arthur Lintgen, who can determine which works of classical music are on a record by examining the record’s grooves.  If Dr. Lintgen could read the new one from My Ruin he’d find hills rolling with caustic rock-oriented riffs, valleys bubbling over in fiercely intemperate screams and deep winding canyons seething with rhythm, rumbling bass and thrashing drums.

For those familiar with My Ruin I think you’ll find this to be their best work yet.  The album’s raw visceral vibe is downright excoriating.  After a doomsy introduction piece called “Stage Fright” the album blasts into full vibrant life with a rock riff that’s an instant classic, heavy pummeling drums, beating the skins with dramatic intensity, flare and style and vocals that relish in their own coarse screaming beauty.  The album meets somewhere between seventies guitar rock and today’s brutal strains of heavy metal.  The appeal is wide to fans with open minds.

From connoisseurs of “stoner-rock” ala Fu Manchu to lovers of death metal, sans blast beats, to revelers in old doom-metal there’s something here for all y’all.  In fact, this is just what fans of true heavy metal have been waiting for even if they are unaware of it.  It re-infuses metal with heavy groove-laden rock and roll, which is something metal has been begging for.  It doesn’t bend-over for radio or MTV2 airplay.  It’s true, hard and never false with a technical grace and organic unity rarely found together on a single release.