Hailing from a farm somewhere in Switzerland, Voice of Ruin have had to stop tending to the cows, put down their shovels and pitchforks and pick up their instruments once again to record their newest offering ‘Morning Wood’, because, as the band put it “Cows and Hop doesn’t sustain the extreme rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle”. For those unfamiliar with the band, one thing to keep in mind, is that these metal merchants play a fine blend of melodic death metal and groove metal, or as the band call it “Horny Farmer Metal”. With an album cover of a giant bull surrounded by naked women stroking it in the sunrise, and the majority of the albums songs dedicated to smut, killing and more smut, not to mention the album’s name, it’s clear the Swiss metal farmers like to have fun.
“Welcome to the Stud Farm” starts the album off – a short instrumental track demonstrating some of the tasty guitar work of the band and it builds up perfectly to the first proper track of the album “Party Hard” which, sadly isn’t a cover of the Andrew W.K. song of the same name. It starts off with a scream of “Party Hard” and the groove driven melodic guitar lines kick in whilst the rhythm section holds the song down tight with a feel which will make you want to bang your head and shout along to the propositioning of the singer and his offer to play with his genitals.
“Through the eyes of the machete” is an ode to killing and fucking and makes the bold claim that even Steven Segal couldn’t handle Machete, before saying the best way to land Jessica Alba is to come to the USA and kill there. Amusing lyrics aside, the metal behind them is relentless, the furious metalcore sounding riffs sound similar to that of Unearth and are delivered with the same ferocity and freeboard wizardry. “Day of Rage” is another aggressive number both musically and lyrically with the frantic drumming and raspy and raw vocals and it leads perfectly into the following track “The Rise of Nothing”. Slightly slower than the previous tracks and with more tongue in cheek lyrics, this is a welcome change of pace if only briefly. The aggression of the rhythm section is still there and the guitars are still fast and tricky but the fury is toned down just a little for the sake of humour.
The album’s title track follows next and given its title, the theme of this song is easy to guess. Musically it is slower paced and has a more metalcore than death metal feel to it and it makes use of clean backing vocals in the chorus mixed in with the hard hitting edge the album maintains. “Viols Desinvoltes” translates loosely to ‘Casual rape’ and it is sang in French. Lyrically it’s slightly twisted, but musically its delivered excellently, giving it an almost Rammstein like feel with the pounding groove and native tongue delivery and the lead work isn’t too shabby either. “Cock N Bulls”, the band’s first single off the album follows and it is the perfect introduction to the band’s sound and if you happen to find the video on YouTube, it’s amusing to watch too.
“Today will End” is another instrumental track, much like the opening number of the album and it is another showcase of the band’s knack for writing melodic death metal styled riffs and powerful grooves. It flows perfectly into the following number “Sex for Free” which is another French tongue song and one which sounds like it would go down a treat in the live setting, especially with the lines “Sex For Free, No Slavery, Sex For Free, No Misery” which begs for a call and response style delivery from the crowd. “Big Dick” follows with its furious delivery and the opening line of “Yeah Fuckers, are you ready to fuck?”. The sheer ferocity of the song with its brutal groove could make this a fantastic live track and replace the word fuck with pit, you’d probably get a brilliant response. “Dirty” closes the album and lives up to its name. The groove fuelled number opens with a melodic solo and retains the ferocity of the previous track, making it another intense song which would go down fantastic in a live setting.
Having recently toured Japan with Fleshgod Apocalypse and The Black Dahlia Murder, Voice of Ruin are a band on the up, and that’s just musically. The smutty farmers play an inventive mix of groove laden melodic metal and the lyrics make most Bloodhound Gang songs look PG-13 in comparison. If you like tongue in cheek lyrics with serious music behind, get it up for Voice of Ruin.
(7/10 Fraggle)
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