(written by Islander)
After a run of short releases beginning in 2011, the Bay Area band Ominous Ruin released a debut album in 2021 via Willowtip Records, Amidst Voices That Echo in Stone, that quickly attracted a lot of enthusiastic attention. As our own DGR wrote in his NCS review, “The band’s sound is one of multiple extreme genres in all-out combat with each other, fully unloading from the hyperactive Tech Death scene even as it drains the arsenal from a very Brutal Death inspired segment as well.” But he also highlighted the even further progressions that the album included as it moved forward, becoming more labyrinthine, more ominous, more unpredictable.
And now Ominous Ruin are returning, again on the Willowtip label, with their sophomore album Requiem. No less technically impressive or brutally bludgeoning than their debut, it nevertheless represents a noticeable evolution, providing an even more expansive array of sensations and moods (including ambient and acoustic passages) in a way that makes the album even more emotionally involving — and mind-bending — than their first one.
This was evident in the first video/single off the album, “Staring Into the Abysm,” and today we have further compelling evidence in our premiere of Ominous Ruin‘s video for the song “Eternal“. Continue reading »