(Below we present DGR‘s review of a new album by California-based Ominous Ruin in advance of its release this coming Friday by Willowtip Records.)
Is it possible for a band to do a complete lateral in their music and yet feel as if they are starting from the same spot they stepped away from? Bay Area tech-death group Ominous Ruin have been around a little over ten years now, yet it sure does feel like with their new album Requiem the group have stepped out to soft-relaunch themselves.
You’d almost never guess it based off the gap of close to four years between releases – and a lot can happen in four years, mind – but it’s as if the Ominous Ruin crew effectively never stopped. Instead, they just did a step to the side and started over again with about the same bar in quality that they established on their album Amidst Voices That Echo In Stone as the starting point. The result is interesting, less cross-pollination among three different subsections of the tome of death metal and instead a laser-like focus on one particular chapter, the tech-death section. Continue reading »