EP REVIEW: Resurrekzión – Ruinas

RUINAS hit the scene in the early stages of the global pandemic with their debut album Ikonoklasta. Led by Rober Bustabad of Spanish deathgrind legends MACHETAZO, there was a real sense of excitement and that the genre could be adding a new feather to its gritty, hideous cap. Two years later, they have returned with their new six-track EP Resurrekzión, carrying central themes of death, doom and an “apocalyptic vision of Christianity”. So far, so deathgrind.

Eterno Retorno and Tormenta De Miseria Y Muerte make for a potent combo to kick things off. The former is an unstoppable freight train of big riffs and guttural growls, while the latter comes at you as a wall of sound, pushing everything as hard as they can. Bustabad has some fantastic vocal passages on Tormenta De Miseria Y Muerte in particular, his distinctive delivery evoking a portal into Hell itself. There’s an argument to be made that these sit more within the death metal wheelhouse than that of grindcore, but wherever you land on it, there’s no denying that the EP gets off to a flying start.

The middle third of the record is very much a case of established business though, adding little to the offering, and Último Vector and the title track Resurrekzión feel very much like a continuation of one another. Drum patterns are incredibly similar, the riffs are nearly interchangeable and even the structure of the songs feels like a copy and paste job. Not necessarily bad songs per se, but a marked step down from the promising duo that came before them. 

And then, bizarrely, the EP ends with a pair of proto-prog instrumentals, including the 17-minute closer Lázaro that is not only longer than the rest of the EP combined, but also a completely different direction for the record. There are sweeping space-age synths and twists and turns aplenty, and ordinarily – or even separately – this wouldn’t pose such an issue, but it is in such stark contrast to the rest of the EP that it feels like two bodies of work from two bands. There’s a decent amount of heavier, chuggier activity sprinkled throughout, but these pockets are so sparse that it’s difficult to stay engaged with the whole track as it contorts wildly until RUINAS finds their eventual conclusion.

It’s a frustrating decision they have made here for a number of reasons. First of all – and most obviously – it comes completely out of the left field. There is no suggestion that this is a prog EP masquerading as deathgrind; as such, it almost feels as if they just ran out of steam and wanted to phone it in. Secondly, there are glimpses of what this band does best, which is to just be disgustingly heavy, and they abandon that just as this EP is starting to get into the swing of things. Thirdly, while there may be a linear de-escalation throughout these six tracks toward their meandering close, something just feels so unfinished. Is it a sign of things to come? Does this exist solely as a precursor for some epic new iteration of RUINAS? Maybe, but for now, there’s zero indication of it.

A baffling amalgam of an EP, Resurrekzión is the sound of a band desperately searching for their sound. There are bright spots at the start, but it’s overall a directionless body of work that never manages to live up to the stature of RUINAS’ previous efforts. We can chalk it up to experimentation, which should always be encouraged, but this one could have done with more time in the lab.

Rating: 5/10

Resurrekzión is set for release on May 13th via Spikerot Records.

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