RSS Feed


RUIN
Spread Plague Death

Nameless Grave / Goat Throne / Nero One / Death Metal Cult (2021)
Rating: 9/10

With customary serial killer intro and a sickening dose of unhealthy speed gloom, Ruin’s Spread Plague Death outing begins its journey.

This Phelan, Californian-based act has existed since 1990, although they split in 1991 before returning after a mysterious hiatus in 2015. This is only the third full-length release from these masked metal murderers that likes to dabble in gruesome, rattling riffs and gore-soaked vocal dribbles courtesy of original member Mihail Jason Satan who took over vocal duties in 2015.

Now, off the bat my favourite track is the multi-dimensional ‘Murderous Delerium’, which is one moment festering, slow death metal, the next there’s a wild solo and then a quickening of bass and percussion as the caveman cult works in tandem to rape the ears with foul speed.

After repeated listens I’m impressed by its 80s authenticity, as here is a band not interested in trends, but at its very core is a doomy, death metal evil that not many other bands can so naturally tap into.

Hear a chugging heap of gore such as ‘Repulsive Universe Inside Nightmares’ and just revel in its gloomy repertoire, whereby drums plod with a pungent sincerity while the guitars glisten with bubbling gore but allowing the horrid bass tone to cut through like a rusty meat clever severing bones.

Mihail’s vocals are about as sick as it gets, bringing the whole twisted atmosphere to the listener as if they were there with the killer in his dingy shack chopping up a cadaver.

The furious DIY gore death / thrash of ‘Catatonic Vomit’ (now there’s a band name!) gives way to mid-tempo bone-chomping gloominess. Here, the utterly morbid guitar tone hints at old Autopsy but remains in its own fusty grave of inhuman construction. And then there are those speedy flurries again, just to swipe away the flies for a moment before they return to puke on their find.

Pick any ghoulish gem from this utterly miserable slab and you’ll become drenched in numerous liquids of morbidity. The lumbering doom of ‘Awaken Rotting Decay’ is mesmeric in its turgid tide as the sludgy percussion drips with congealed pus. ‘Ornaments Of Flesh’ seeps with creepy atmosphere dragging me to Ed Gein’s farmhouse of rusty tools and dangling corpses, while ‘Choking On Burning Blood’ heaves through the murkiness as those infected drums tumble like old bones tipped into a furnace and the guitars wail with melancholic pride, almost sneering at the listener.

While Cerebral Rot’s Excretion Of Mortality remains by favourite death metal release of 2021, Ruin’s latest killing spree comes close because if you want to adorn yourself in the stinking flesh of another and dance around a steaming grave then Spread Plague Death is probably the foulest soundtrack you need.

Fast paced filth merging with dragging, slurping slowness is the only way I can truly describe this vile, decomposing pile of death metal sickness. This is some scary shit!

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Album & EP Reviews



Related Posts via Categories
Share