Review Summary: Guitars
Within the Ruins sure can play guitar. The leads, technical patterns, and chugging riffs are all executed to near perfection on Creature. The drums are there and sound fine, but they never stand out anywhere near as much as the guitars do. There is probably a bass player, but he is almost always covered up by the guitars. Within the Ruins also has a vocalist, but he’s a trifling annoyance standing in the guitars’ way. Within the Ruins is your typical metalcore band, only better at their instruments and way more interested in showing off.
There isn’t much to this album behind the guitars, but damn are they good. They’re executed flawlessly throughout the album. Though not all the riffs are memorable, a great number of them are. The guitars are always the focal point, even during the chugging breakdown parts you find yourself listening to the chugging instead of the guy yelling monotone over them. The vocalist has two ranges: moderately high and moderately low. He gets his job done, but for the most part he’s pretty boring. The only time he even seems remotely important is during the breakdowns. And even then he only gets a few seconds to be heard before another guitar part comes in flying all over the place and diverting the listener’s attention.
There is a bass player. His name is Madison. If you listen incredibly closely you might be able to hear him imitating the guitar part being played over it. The drummer, whose name is Drummer, is a pretty good drummer. He’s nothing fantastic, but as stated above he gets his job done. He uses a lot of double bass kicks, and a high number of snare hits. And, during almost every breakdown, he smashes the crash symbol in time to the music. It’s incredibly generic, but it fits the music just fine.
Within the Ruins are pretty good, overall. They have plenty of talent and potential, but they really need to work on one aspect of their music; the songwriting. There are some very interesting parts in some of the songs, and Holy Mess seems especially well put together. The band really just seems like a platform for the guitarists, Joe and Kyle, to show how ***ing fast they can play, and how ***ing weird and technical their riffs are, and how if they play really ***ing high and fast they can sound like ***ing video game music. The vocalist, Jon, just seems like he was brought into the fold to hang out with them and yell one-liners during the breakdowns. It works, but it could be so much more. Hopefully they will work more on making structured, technical songs with their talented guitarists, instead of making more music to show off their shredz. Creature is still a pretty damn good metalcore album, but it needs work. It’s worthy of checking out for the riffs and the dual guitar interplay, which at times is quite impressive. The songs are nice but are pretty similar to each other. Within the Ruins may be great in the future. They have all the tools. They just need to put them together.
Pros
-Consistent
-Guitar work is top-notch
-Some good breakdowns
Cons
-Repetitive
-Songwriting is sometimes lacking
-Vocals and drums are merely average
Recommended Tracks
-Arsenal
-Tractor Pull
-Holy Mess
