Written by Kep
Wounds – Ruin
> Technical death metal
> Illinois, US
> Releasing March 15
> Everlasting Spew Records
Ruin is an album that’s been a long time coming. It’s already been over five years since Wounds released their first EP Light Eater—a five-track, 20-minute powerhouse of a thing that caught my attention—and almost two decades since the band formed under the name Wounds of Ruin. That’s quite a chunk of years preceding a debut album, with surprisingly little musical output to boot. Thanks to the wait and plenty of hype from Everlasting Spew, who picked Wounds up on the strength of the aforementioned EP, anticipation has been built, but the expectations have remained a bit of a question mark.
With Ruin (a title I suspect is a sly reference to their original band name) we see a technical death metal band firmly establishing their core sound, both in terms of riffage and production. This isn’t that spidery, frenetic sort of techdeath that feels breathless and acrobatic; rather, Wounds play a thick and chunky style, replete with tightly wound chugs and jagged lines that thrust spiked points upward in deeply satisfying syncopation. They’ve got a knack for finding a meaty pocket and grooving in that space for a while—though I wouldn’t necessarily call their riffs groovy. The songs aren’t so much journeys as they are punchy, concentrated doses of muscle. They do it all with production notable for its somewhat muted master and pleasing clarity that doesn’t sacrifice the chunk, especially in brawny bass tone that occupies a place not much lower in the mix than the guitars.
Ruin opens with an intro track called “Of Ruin”, which fades in on stuttering rhythms and promptly gets to proper riffing. Why it doesn’t connect to second track “The Archfiend’s Apothecary” I don’t know, but I wish I did—the riff that ends the <2:00 intro is quite similar to the one that follows after the track break, particularly in tempo. Not the world’s most convincing start from an album-crafting perspective, but Wounds gets to work right away with helping us forget, as “The Archfiend’s Apothecary” takes off with a quick chugs and reeling runs that peel off then drop deftly back. You’ll know if Ruin is your thing within the first minute or so, because that rapid-fire chug- and quick lick-centric sound is their bread and butter. Expect no wasted time and straight-to-the-point songwriting; “Zoophagist” is the only track here that even has much of an intro section, while the rest just hit you with a fill at most before going straight to riff city.
Vocalist Norman Hale acquits himself well across the runtime, primarily with a throaty roar that adds some appreciated continuity of sound over the consistently punchy staccato of Rick Mora‘s guitars. Hale also throws in hoarse high screams on occasion, an approach that’s effective but isn’t used often enough to make the impact it could from a variety standpoint. Those tight staccato riffs are everything here on Ruin, and you’ll notice that Mora and bassist Franco Caballero get a good amount of mileage out of relatively compact chunks of notes. They’re not flying up and down the fretboards constantly, but rather finding pockets and rumbling around inside, taking occasional jabs outside and then tumbling back in. Take the recurring riff of “In the Maw of the Beast”: jagged and punchy, it scales a little ways up quickly and falls just as quickly, sometimes breaking the pattern to reel off a quick descending lick from slightly higher. It’s a surprisingly economical approach, but it’s still fast, crisp, and blistering on the technical front.
We can’t talk about what Wounds does well on this album without talking rhythm section, because the combo of Caballero and drummer Nate Burgard is the rock solid foundation on which Ruin is built. Like I mentioned above, the bass tone is wicked good and producer Paul Aluculesei gives it a prominent spot in the mix, which means that every one of those nifty riffs in the guitar is paired neatly with an equally nifty fingerstyle bass lick that you can really hear. It’s such a massive part of what identifies Wounds’ sound, keeping things as thick top to bottom as it is side to side. For his part, Burgard doesn’t do an overly large amount of showing off, staying mostly away from wild fills, unorthodox rhythms, and the like, but his playing is absolute bedrock: precise, speedy, and powerful at all times. The band is at their best when rapidly shifting meters and rhythmic emphases, as exemplified in whirlwind closing track “Bent on Disaster”, driven by his dynamic, turn-on-a-dime work on the skins.
THE BOTTOM LINE
So is Ruin a success of a debut LP? I’d say it absolutely is: Wounds have firmly established their trademark sound, riff design of choice, and songwriting in a neat 38-minute package that supplies plenty of things to love. That’s not to say there isn’t room to go up from here—an increased variety of riff structures and textures would be appreciated—but for a band releasing their very first full-length effort, I think Wounds has delivered.