There probably couldn’t have been a more appropriate album to review for Ave Noctum than this which is my 666th album review for the site. This is the second time I’ve reviewed a Ruin Lust album with the first being their previous outing ‘Choir Of Babel’ released in 2020 which was a veritable onslaught of blackened death metal that I thoroughly enjoyed. Back then I gave the album a 9/10 making it very difficult for the US band to surpass my expectations with this fourth album. The question of whether this is better than ‘Choir Of Babel’ is personal judgement, both are as good as each other and where some bands attempt to swerve into newer territory Ruin Lust do not. They prefer to unleash a firestorm of epic proportions and that is immediately apparent when ‘Eden’ kicks this album off.
In places the opener borders on chaos, its horror filled demolition is tinged with an atmosphere of menace particularly when the pace drops and you get to focus on the heinous abyssal vocals that emanate from it. Added to that you get some twisted and demented lead work just to add to its pernicious assault. ‘Imperium’ follows and as expected the song blasts in with unceremonious homicidal glee as the guitar work had me thinking about Slayer’s ‘Hell Await’s with that fret scraping style but also how it just seems to embed into your head. At times the band borders war metal, similar to Canada’s Revenge but also France’s Autokrator and into the nihilistic style of black metal by bands like Archgoat. The pace of this album is insane at times, there is very little time catch your breath as ‘Clinamen’ has a fantastic caustic riff to begin it. I do like isolated riff openings to songs in this style, they’re like the touch paper that ignites the rest of the song which duly arrives with complete and utter devastation.
‘Thrall’ does offer a brief pause in the speed however, though is no less intense as its flooding drum work cascades into the songs distorted and terror saturated aura. Here we even get a semblance of something that is catchy when listening to the embedded riffing and hooks that weave through it. As predicted the riff break signals the blast beat and it arrives with ridiculous power that continues into the title track. The very short intro phase allows the title track to briefly give you time to breathe before it pulverises with its war metal footing. Three snare taps and ‘Purge’ detonates into life as fans of Blasphemy will certainly appreciate where Ruin Lust are focused in their onslaught. The massive drop in pace sends the track down a blackened doom path and is hugely contrasting with how the song started.
‘Infinite Regress’ and ‘Chemical World’ are the albums two closing songs as the former has an old 80s like riff that the most extreme bands of that era adopted, particularly old Slayer but also Sepultura, old Sodom etc. but of course this is way quicker in delivery. As the shortest track on the album ‘Infinite Regress’ worms it’s into your soul with unforgiving drum work but also abominable inhuman vocals. The closer has a fade in of distortion that allows the songs riff to intensify towards the inevitable bombardment that follows. The vocals use a disembowelling tone alongside harsher more screamed tones crafting plenty of texture of the excellent closer and if anything is the fastest most hideous song on the album as it builds to a climactic destructive finale.
Few albums in 2023 will be as annihilating and intense as ‘Dissimulant’, tangible terror claws at you from start to finish making this one of the most extreme albums you’ll listen to this year.
(9/10 Martin Harris)
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