Richard HolmesKrieg – Ruiner (Profound Lore Records)
It may have been nine years since Krieg’s last full-length, Transient, was unleashed. But mainman Neill Jameson (aka Imperial) and co. haven’t exactly let the grass grow under their feet. A string of EPs, splits with the likes of Integrity, and even a collaboration with avant-noisemongers The Body, have emerged since 2014.
However, Ruiner feels more like a genuine return to the fray for the US black metal pioneers.
A ‘we’re back’ statement.
And it’s a stunning eight-song set of soul-searing BM, a record that has Krieg’s charred essence right at its heart. That essence bleeds into every passage of searing tremolo picking, every dramatic flourish and every glorious moment of transcendence.
Krieg’s ability to balance hellfire black metal with spectral post punk, and wrap their sonic assaults in layers of claustrophobia and dread, is astonishing. The effect, on the likes of Fragments of Nothing, Red Rooms and Bulwark, is hypnotic. The songs reveal more every time you revisit them. Certainly, it takes a few journeys through Ruiner’s depths to fully appreciate every twist and turn, even if many of its tracks start out as violent BM blasts.
Ruiner isn’t as obviously experimental as Transient. An Execution in the Kingdom Of Ideas, for example, just goes straight for the jugular: it’s a rampaging war machine, which wouldn’t have been out of place on Destruction Ritual or The Black House.
However, the album’s closer, The Lantern and the Key, shows that Krieg embrace darkness in all of its hues. The song evolves into a chasm-deep fever dream, set to Joy Division-esque industrial decay, and drifts to its end on a tide of wraithlike synths. The Lantern and the Key is one hell of a closing statement… and the sense unease doesn’t leave you for some time.
Indeed, once Krieg’s eighth studio album is branded into your brain, it stays there.
The record is a shard of Imperial’s soul, after all.
Ruiner hurts.
It’s probably meant to.
And it shows that Krieg are still a creative force to be reckoned with.
Krieg band image by Kassandra Carmona.
