Review: My Ruin

My Ruin
“A Prayer Under Pressure of Violent Anguish”
(Snapper Music)

My Ruin’s “A Prayer Under pressure of Violent Anguish” is the much heavier and more cohesive follow up to the first release, “Blasphemous Girl.”  My Ruin marks the newest chapter in Tairrie B.’s music career.  The woman who has gone from a glam rapper working with the likes of Dr. Dre through various metal incarnations as ManHole and later Tura Satana, Tairrie has emerged with her ruin, the effacing of herself as the central focus to be part of a band.

And the band is good.  The riffs crunch and brutalize in the vein of Black Sabbath meets the heavy, older brother of Rage Against the Machine.  The band, although harkening stylistically to Sepultura and Fear Factory, is a new breed set far apart from the usual derivativeness of the other Limp Korn Bizkits that followed in their wake. Tairrie’s shrieks come across as ballsy as if she had a pair.  They are loud and masculine, contrasted throughout the album with a sweet crooning that could be the voice of that three packs of cigarettes a day waitress we’ve all encountered from time to time.  The one who calls you, “Hon,” and then coughs up blood.

The drumming and bass work on the album combines to keep your foot tapping away as if in the midst of some isolated seizure.  Don’t listen to this album in public or you’ll irritate all those around you with your damned incessant toe tapping.  Don’t forget to keep the disc spinning for My Ruin’s unlisted cover of Black Flag’s “My War.”