Album Reviews

I liked Ruiner from the moment I first heard their debut “Prepare To Be Let Down” and that feeling was only enhanced with the release of “I Heard These Guys Are Assholes”, a compilation of older material. Now they’re finally here with a new album, “Hell Is Empty”.

Vocalist Rob Sullivan has a cool kind of hoarse shout and is not afraid to show that he wears his heart on his sleeve. At times the music even takes the backseat to let Sullivan spit out his smart and thought-provoking lyrical content. “Part One” is a good example of that. Most of the time however these Baltimore hardcore kids prove that you don’t need breakneck speeds to drive your point home. You can just as well destroy everything at a slower pace as Ruiner more than proves on cuts like “Dead Weight” and “Convenient Gods”. Like a more rocking version of Modern Life Is War they will quite your ass without thinking twice about it. To show that they haven’t forgotten where they come from, they churn out a couple of fast-paced hardcore tracks and nail them just the same (“Part Two” or “I’m Out”).

All this makes for a pretty varied hardcore album that I simply can’t seem to get enough of.