Search - Ruins :: Vrresto

Only one review? Hell no!

Wheelchair Assassin | The Great Concavity | 05/20/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"If you think wild, bizarre Japanese music begins and ends with the legendary Boredoms, you ain't heard nothing yet. If Vrresto is any indication, Ruins top even those legendary noise merchants in terms of craziness, as this is music whose origins can barely even be traced to this planet, let alone to any particular genre or country. What results from the intertwining of Yoshida Tatsuya's insanely intricate drum patterns and Sasaki Hisashi's spastic noodlings on bass guitar, along with the space-aliens-on-acid vocal gibberish of both, is some of the most playful, unpredictable, and lovably wacky listening ever produced by a band not named Mr. Bungle. The term avant-garde can often connote excessive seriousness or undue pretensions, but in spite of this twosome's finely-honed musicianship Vrresto is pure fun from start to finish. At fifteen tracks, it offers up a mix of short, sharp pieces and longer, more epic numbers, all of which are addictive and catchy enough to make a guy with no neck bang his head.



As you might expect given this band's lineup, Ruins's sound is pretty much all rhythm, but like their modern-day offspring in Lightning Bolt they come up with more than enough variations on their main theme to prevent anything resembling repetition or boredom from setting in, as you can still spend months trying to decipher the reams of complexity in this album's incredibly busy compositions. Plus, again like Lightning Bolt, Ruin's sound is so inhumanly huge and LOUD you won't even notice only two people are making it. This album is at its best when it's at its fastest and most furious, Yoshida hitting his drumkit harder and more often than you'd think possible (actually, I'm surprised his kit can even take the pounding), Sasaki's bass churning out atomic riffs and screeching bursts of feedback, and a succession of strangulated shrieks, garbled howls, and demented falsetto crowning emerging from their mouths. The term "musical roller coaster" doesn't even begin to do Vrresto justice; you've just got to hear it for yourself. If you dare."

New remix on SkinGraft

footfootvrr | Bigtimore, MD | 02/23/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a remix by Tatsuya Yoshida of the original Magaibutsu release. The sound is different--harsher, like the sound on "Ruins Best". It has the effect of drawing "Vrresto" closer in sensibility to their earlier releases--it's smoother sound shocked me when I first heard the original. As of right now, I find this niether better nor worse, just different."