Album Review: Within The Ruins - "Phenomena II"

Good news and bad news.  

Good news first.  Within The Ruins’ new album, “Phenomena II” is tremendously skillful, as deft an execution of brutal but still accessible metalcore as there exists in the genre.  The band remains totally unique amidst their brethren, still willing to eschew the sheer viciousness of their genre in favor of an ultra-clean guitar sound and high-flying melodies, studded with blistering solos.  Everything that makes this band great and novel remains gloriously intact.

Bad news. “Phenomena II” sounds absolutely identical to the previous album, “Black Heart.”  Wiping away the familiarity over the past four years with “Black Heart,” to put the combined twenty-one songs of the two albums into a big pool and draw them out, it would be nearly impossible to discern which was from which album.

This is the perpetual pitfall of a genre like metalcore and those akin to it – the boundaries are so specific, the tenets of the genre so rigidly unbending (and the auditory distortion and vocal growling so unceasing,) that bands can, and often do, struggle to differentiate their pieces.  (The Browning, cousins to metalcore, suffered from a similar issue.  They made a noble attempt to break some conventions for “Geist,” but were ultimately unsuccessful.)

Listen, let’s not get too far down the rabbit hole here.  None of this is to say that “Phenomena II” isn’t good, or isn’t worth listening to.  It’s easy to focus on the negative, but focus instead on everything that was said in the first paragraph.  Still plenty of good news here.  Within The Ruins is still the gold standard for technical metalcore; nothing there has been altered.

As it has been in the past, the band is at their best when experimenting with instrumentals.  “Level 12” is a glorious ride – it changes pace, alters cadence, offers glimpses of the prowess of the players, both in the playing and in the mastering.  Every instrument, every musicians, has a voice in this song, it’s just that there’s no vocals.

Same goes for “Death Mask,” which, if you can hear the thread under the top layer, is the best thrash instrumental in ages.  There’s a breakdown around the 2:15 mark that is delicious in its simplicity of riff, contrast to the rest of the tune (and the album,) and then it transitions into a brief but tuneful solo.

One might be so bold as to suggest that this kind of songwriting, but coupled with vocals, would make for a truly extraordinary Within The Ruins experience.

So look, this is what it comes down to.  If you’re already familiar with Within The Ruins, grab this if for no other reason than “Death Mask,” and don’t be shocked when it feels like you’ve heard it all before.  If you’re never heard Within The Ruins before, this is a great record that will serve as a perfect entry point.