{"id":20556,"date":"2014-04-25T00:00:27","date_gmt":"2014-04-25T00:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=20556"},"modified":"2014-07-25T00:30:56","modified_gmt":"2014-07-25T00:30:56","slug":"album-review-voice-of-ruin-morning-wood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-voice-of-ruin-morning-wood\/","title":{"rendered":"VOICE OF RUIN – Morning Wood (2014) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

VOICE OF RUIN
Morning Wood<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nTenacity Music (2014)<\/span>
Rating: 4\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/td>\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Swiss quintet Voice Of Ruin has just released sophomore effort Morning Wood<\/em>, and it\u2019s the kind of contemporary metal record that makes me feel very old! <\/p>\n

These guys originally formed back in 2007, and the current line-up features vocalist Randy Schaller, the two-pronged guitar team of Martin Peikert and Nils Horngacher, bassist Erwin Bertschi, and drummer Olivier Sutter.<\/p>\n

Morning Wood<\/em> is very much modern metal; the sort of groove-based \u201cthrash\u201d that has little connection with the past. The riffs are energetic and fresh-sounding, the vocals opt for a kind of raspy bark, and the drums rattle with conviction, but I struggle so much to get my head around a style of music that is an amalgamation of varying styles and yet fails to be as interesting as those differing avenues it has explored. I guess bands like Fear Factory are to blame for this post-90s sort of clean-cut rock music that for some unknown reason seems popular among the kids. <\/p>\n

Voice Of Ruin flit between fast segments which aren\u2019t really thrash, while the \u201cdeathlier\u201d aspects just aren\u2019t death metal. In a sense, these guys inhabit a void, or should I say climate, of groove-based \u201cmetal\u201d that appeals to a certain age group, or maybe I\u2019m being na\u00efve in my old age?<\/p>\n

As \u2018Party Hard\u2019 and \u2018Through The Eyes Of Machete\u2019 come in huge waves of precise riffs and those clicking but mildly impressive drums, though I\u2019m left scratching my head at the trendiness of it all. All I can see or hear is a bunch of mid-to-late teens so far removed from the metal heyday, but clearly talented as they twist and turn through a series of unpredictable structures.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard a few people state that Voice Of Ruin are death metal, but it seems that most \u201cdeath metal\u201d bands today are far from the guttural, primitive style I grew up on, especially when bands of this ilk seem to have more in common with contemporary acts such as Soilwork and the latter works of Fear Factory. Fear Factory do occasionally spring to mind on the aforementioned \u2018Through The Eyes Of Machete\u2019, but any band that describes themselves as \u201chorny farmer metal\u201d just has to be kidding right? With the guttural vocals attempting to walk hand in hand with ear-aching melody, I\u2019m completely bored by the time we\u2019ve reached the catchy yet sickeningly modern clicks and grunts of the title track. <\/p>\n

C\u2019mon, people. Is it really \u201cdeath metal\u201d, because the vocalist can emit chesty bellows? Of course not, and neither is it thrash metal just because the band can play fast, and it\u2019s certainly not progressive when the combo attempts to link the two styles. <\/p>\n

When I see the term \u201cmetalcore\u201d passed around like some soggy joint, I\u2019m often left befuddled, but I guess Voice Of Ruin fit into that bracket as they \u2013 like so many other misunderstood youngsters of today \u2013 melt together what the Green Day kids call punk with handfuls of other post late 90s styles. I guess the likes of Machine Head, Sepultura (when they turned crap), Pantera and Fear Factory all laid the groundwork for this abomination of sound that acts such as Voice Of Ruin have adopted, but in spite of its attempts to sound angry and sarcastic, Morning Wood<\/em> just flops before me like a naughty schoolchild hell-bent on contemporary rebellion, only to be told by his mother \/ father that \u201cmusic\u201d of this ilk was far scarier and a lot more aggressive back in the 70s and 80s. <\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter what you call Voice Of Ruin\u2019s style, because it\u2019s one that grates on me until my bones are reduced to piles of chalk.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOICE OF RUINMorning Wood Tenacity Music (2014)Rating: 4\/10 Swiss quintet Voice Of Ruin has just released sophomore effort Morning Wood, and it\u2019s the kind of contemporary metal record that makes me feel very old! These guys originally formed back in 2007, and the current line-up features vocalist Randy Schaller, the two-pronged guitar team of Martin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-voice-of-ruin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20556"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20561,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20556\/revisions\/20561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}