### Face Of Ruin: Face of ruin

#### 04/05/09 || theProphet

Face of Ruin hails from Milwaukee and their progressive death metal is some of the best music I’ve heard in quite a while. Guitarist Shane had the good taste of sending me their EP from last year, and I’m fucking thankful that he did. Thanks to him, I get to discover some awesome metal, and thanks to me, Face of Ruin gets some well deserved coverage on the almighty Global Domination.

So why’s my male juices cascading down my muscular thighs over this? Well, it’s a safe bet that FoR has taken at least a couple of lessons from Gojira, a band that I personally enjoy very much. Also, as is the case with many EPs, Face of Ruin manages to keep the intensity throughout the album, which is an aspect that I often find aforementioned Frenchmen to be lacking.

On its self titled EP, FoR displays some seriously advanced musicianship and songcrafting skills (this is progressive death after all) and the performances are tighter than Mother Theresa’s snatch. The material ranges from Meshuggah style broken down riffage, to insanely technical death metal passages, to almost Gothenburgain melodies here and there (which is okay since here the whole fucking musical concept doesn’t rely on pretty melodies). These parts are then sent swirling down a maelstrom of tempo changes and coupled with the fine-ass vocal delivery of mr. Ed McCoy (a name which we can only assume is an alias used for comic relief amongst all the mayhem and dementia).

The production is very good as well, although adding a little more meat to the guitars would not hurt, and as an extra bonus, it would piss off Cattle Decapitation, which would be kinda funny since they would be mistaking a metaphor for actual murdering of animals for the sake of their flesh. But then again, I never said anything about animals…

In conclusion, FoR shows off what might be THE best music I’ve ever heard in this category. The performances are flawless, the songwriting is awesome, and the production is joke inspiring. I’m also quite sure that all the bandmembers are divinely handsome and endowed with penises that make flagpoles look like toothpicks. Of course, churning out 15 minutes of top notch material is one thing, but maintaining the same high quality for an entire full length is entirely different. However, you could say that my hopes for this lot are soaringly high.

8 happy surprises out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2008
- Label: Zero Budget Records
- Website: Face Of Ruin MySpace
- Band
- Ed McCoy: vocals
- Shane Ebert: guitars
- Brian Hessler: guitars
- Noah Mezsick: bass
- Cris Bissell: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Gutted by the Knife of Guilt
- 02. Bound… Driven to the Altar
- 03. Pleasure of Malevolence
- 04. Extinction’s Birth