ALBUM REVIEW: Tide Into Ruin – Row Of Ashes
ROW OF ASHES’ last album – 2022’s Bleaching Heat – was an absolute worldie. Essentially pouring out a hefty measure of viscous sludge and seasoning it with a load of angular noise rock and chaotic post-hardcore, it carried all the giddy and intoxicating thrills of licking a leaking car battery if that’s something anyone would ever dare to confess to enjoying on the internet. The live shows that followed were even better, the gargantuan riff drop of Jerk alone no doubt winning over plenty who had paid to see the esteemed likes of HELPLESS, WILL HAVEN and PORTRAYAL OF GUILT among the many others the band have supported over the past few years. And it all leads here, to the Bristol-based trio’s fourth album Tide Into Ruin, and further proof of one of the most quietly bloody brilliant outfits the UK has to offer.
As with Bleaching Heat, it remains particularly impressive that ROW OF ASHES make all the racket that they do by and large without any extra layering or trickery or overdubs. Tide Into Ruin is clearly the work of a tight and cohesive unit, with Chris Wilson’s bass flooding the mix with sludge and Dan Arrowsmith’s drums propelling things forward and guitarist Will Turner Duffin free either to lock in and double down on the sheer suffocating weight of it all, or to elevate the tracks with something more cacophonous or soaring or atmospheric. It makes for a massive sound – full and enrapturing and imposing and even quite vibrant in its own bleak and twisted way.
Despite its 40-minute runtime adding a good ten to that of its predecessor, there’s also something of a newfound urgency, or at least different kind of urgency, to Tide Into Ruin. Five of the album’s ten tracks come in under three-minute mark – the stabby freneticism of Imber, the freight train riffing of Immoralist and the seismic chug and creeping leads of Wretch all making for highlights among them – while longer efforts like the hypnotic lead single Tide and the sprawling Wake make good use of dynamics to pull the listener in only to suddenly steamroll them with a riff or lift them to towering heights from which they can observe the devastation unfolding below. Wilson’s performance as a vocalist also adds to the album’s desperate intensity, his maniacal screams in the aforementioned likes of Imber and Immoralist bordering on the outright concerning.
The album ends strong too. Penultimate track Icon provides the climax, all crushing and chaotic and suitably epic before rolling into the instrumental Coda where a winding jam slips under a wash of noise and screaming courtesy of Simon Mason of fellow UK sludge contortionists TORPOR. It’s probably the only place that Tide Into Ruin gets a bit self-indulgent, but it is easily forgiven for the vibes alone, and it proves a fitting enough end to an album that does so much to terrify and mesmerise alike. ROW OF ASHES still feel like a bit of a well-kept secret, which may just be par for the course for a band that makes such abrasive and oppressive music, but if you like exactly that and you aren’t familiar with them already then you would do well to rectify that immediately, and definitely to start here.
Rating: 8/10
Tide Into Ruin is set for release on June 13th via Road To Masochist.
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