ALBUM REVIEW: This World Is Going To Ruin You – Vein.fm
Hardcore is having a moment. More accurately, the genre is having a collection of moments spanning several years at this point. Between the recent mainstream attention of THE ARMED, rap collaborations between the likes of DENZEL CURRY and BAD BRAINS, and even Grammy nominations for CODE ORANGE, the hardcore of old that bitterly rejected the music industry and commercialisation is a far cry from the hardcore punk of today.
When VEIN released their debut album Errorzone in 2018, the metal scene sat up and paid attention. Merging the worlds of hardcore punk with industrial metal, nu-metal, mathcore and metalcore, this was a band that was something of a contradiction in and of itself. Too nu-metal for the hardcore crowd and too hardcore for the everything-else crowd, they still rightfully garnered mass critical acclaim; Distorted Sound gave it a 9/10 upon release and labelled it “one of the best extreme albums to come out this year”.
Back again with a new album (and a new name) VEIN.FM’s This World Is Going To Ruin You is an acerbic, twisting, snarling beast of a record. Encapsulating a sense of vengefulness and bitterness in a dark and disgusting 32-minute package, this album is about the human condition between birth and death. Frontman Anthony DiDio explained “I was coming from a very anti-social mentality. There was a lot of feeling of being taken advantage of, so it’s like a wounded animal or a scared child getting revenge.”
With eight of the record’s 12 tracks clocking in under three minutes apiece, this isn’t an album that wastes any time in laying waste to everything around it. From the opening samples of Welcome Home there is an incredible unease to This World Is Going To Ruin You; the distorted electronics, blunt thudding drums, thrashing vocals and cascading, brutal guitars all culminate in the aural equivalent of a psychological slasher horror.
VEIN.FM’s penchant for drawing in wide-reaching metal influences once again rears its many heads here to dazzling effect. When they hired turntablist Benno Levine in 2019, the band doubled down on their nu-metal streak, coming to the fore most of all here on Hellnight to sound like a lost tape of SLIPKNOT’s Iowa. Comparisons to both ends of the DEFTONES spectrum can be drawn across the record, from the harsh vocals at the start of The Killing Womb to the shoegazey, barely-there vocals of Funeral Sound; that same song carries an industrial metal streak akin to that of NINE INCH NAILS and a final third that ties everything together in a way that is reminiscent of the works of LOATHE.
We said of Errorzone that there were no conventional standout tracks, but more that it was the sum of its parts, and that’s once again true here on This World Is Going To Ruin You. There’s no one track that stands out as best or worst, strongest or weakest, and that comes down to a couple of crucial factors. Firstly, while on first listen this is an all-out assault of sonic violence, there is great depth and variety in how the vitriol is served up. There are unyielding, blink-and-you’ll-miss it scream fests like Inside Design, but then there’s also the comparatively glacial Wherever You Are that’s an atmospheric, piano-led goliath where even the keys are as heavy as the drums. Secondly, and most importantly of all, this whole record is just astoundingly, stupidly good from the first second to the very last.
Hardcore is having a moment. And with VEIN.FM at the helm, the genre is going to have many more moments to come. All hail the new kings of the old underground.
Rating: 9/10
This World Is Going To Ruin You is out now via Nuclear Blast Records and Closed Casket Activities (North America).
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