By Monk
One of the beauties of being involved in a relatively closely-knit music community such as that in our particular wee corner of the Überverse is discovering new, up-and-coming bands who continue to move the local scene forward, injecting it with freshness and new vitality. Hence I immediately paid attention when a very young new outfit took the time and effort to hunt down our back street HQ, kick in the door and slap us square in the face with their impactful debut EP.
Only formed this past Spring, these three introductory tracks from County Antrim’s From Ruins display a confidence and maturity which defiantly contradict the brevity of their existence, blending traditional and new age metalcore miens with aplomb and dexterity, striking a pose that stands proudly with one foot in the camp of genre progenitors such as BMTH and Bullet and the other in that of more experiential latter-day exponents such as Enter Shikari or fellow Northern Irish breakouts Archives.
Opener ‘Hate Me’ immediately proves that we’ll be doing far from that, a dense crunching riff cascading into an initially Slipknot-ish nu metal beatdown, Niall O’Kane’s vocals switching between clean and dirty with visceral ease, melding with the winding twin guitar lines and the precise percussive underlay, the latter building all three songs with the strongest possible foundation, the rhythm section of Damon Doherty and David Patton almost indistinguishable from one another with their positive cohesion.
Middle track ‘Damnation’ is a more traditional metalcore offering, sharp and punchy in its delivery yet still possessing multiple layers worth exploring with multiple listens, while ‘Running Away’ – the track with which the band introduced themselves to the Überverse earlier this dark summer – is so full of angst and furious intent it’s surprising the band managed to make it to the end in one piece! Once again, it also delivers plenty of light and shade, with the sheer intensity of each performance, and especially that of Patton, which is just OFTR in terms of the blastbeats he delivers in the second half. All accentuated by a beautiful production job, which draws out every nuance of the band’s sound yet also retains every ounce of that all-important anger and intensity.
There most definitely is nothing to hate about the vibes this Ballymoney quintet are generating, and they certainly won’t be damned to people running away from them… in fact, quite the opposite: with any luck, the cognoscenti of the Norn Iron metal scene will be running toward them with open arms, embracing them and hugging them close to their chests… now, get yer arses down to Voodoo and play a gig so I can see if ya live up to your promise on the live stage \m/
- ‘Inner Demons‘ is released on 13 October.
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