Band: Ruins
Title: Front The Final Foes
Label: Debemur Morti / Agonia Records
Distribution: Sure Shot Worx / Displeased Records
Release date: 25/12/2009
Review: CD

Ruins, the Australian one (or more specific: Tasmanian), is a project by Alex Pope (lyrics, music, bass, guitars and vocals; also known from the Australian formation Evil Dead) and drummer / music writer David Haley (The Amenta, Psycroptic, session work with Aborted, Nervecell, Disseminate, Blöod Düster etc). The project was formed in 2004 and released some great material in mean time: Atom And Time (a mini; 2004), Spun Forth As Dark Nets (Neurotic Records 2005; I quoted this release 92/100, by the way – review probably still available in the Concreteweb-archives) and Cauldron (their Debemur Morti-debut; 2008 – unfortunately the review didn’t make the site).
Front The Final Foes, the second Debemur Morti-release, lasts for forty five minutes and goes on in the vein of Cauldron. The album brings eight tracks exhaling a mesmerizing and haunting form of mid- to up-tempo oriented Black Metal with a profound Post-Black edge, balancing on the border of ominous and atmospheric yet modern Doom-Death, and caressing a superior Nordic sound. There are lots of tempo-changes, sometimes reaching an almost blasting level (mainly done by the overpowering drum patterns), and also the melodies and technical structures do vary enough to make the whole worth listening too whole the time. And even though the album does not sound renewing or original, it does not sound as some easy copy of any (Norwegian) band either.
Comparisons indeed are, especially, Norwegian – think Tulus, Satyricon, Khold, Thorns, Immortal; even early Gorgoroth / Darkthrone / Zyklon do come to mind from time to time. Bleak, obscure, eerie, grim, it defines this new superior opus by one of the most interesting Australian Black Metal projects nowadays!

90/100

Ivan Tibos.