Menace Ruine – Alight In Ashes
Reaching out for the avante-garde requires effort on my part, especially if the audio art in question lacks a definable Metal twinge. The music of Menace Ruine does step gingerly on the unseen line between the black metal and the bizarre, yet the darkness of their aesthetic ratchets up the intensity factor just enough for me to remain engaged for the duration. The harsh, but settling timbre of Menace Ruine’s meticulously crafted drone returns with the Canadian twosome of Genevieve and De La Moth’s latest (and first for Profound Lore) Alight in Ashes. And like a tide coming back in at the dead of night, the band’s encroaching torrent both frightens and beckons the listener to tempt fate by dipping a toe into the cold.
Menace Ruine have before, and now again on Alight…, create a thick fog of distorted dreams pouring out of the speakers, with chanted choirs like those found in ‘Arsenikon (faded in discord),’ showcasing Genevieve’s rounded, clearly-sang vocals – followed by dissonant waves of distortion and marching, nigh-imperceptible percussion – that suggest a never-arriving blitzkrieg just over the horizon. Her Grace Slick-ened delivery gravitates the flood of noise and abyssal worship into your sonic acceptors with a ’60s twinge neither anachronistic nor nostalgic, reinforced with evil takes on The Doors keyboard “riffs” like those found in ‘Salamandra’ and a twisted nod to the The Byrds/Ecclesiastes (‘a time to heal, a time to die’), in ‘Disease of Fear’. These attributes leave you with an acceptance of their occult-themed disposition.
With cracking, distorted cello/organ/violin synths, Menace Ruine have sculpted a worthy nomination for this year’s most unclassifiable work of heaviness, but, unlike most albums of that vein which easily drop off the radar for this writer, Alight in Ashes has more staying power than most. Not something to spin every day, nor will this be a taste for diehards, but if you’re tired of the familiar, confidently reach for this and enjoy a delicate dance of blackened drone. -Jim
Profound Lore
Worm Gear 
RE: “Grace Slick”, I’m glad someone else hears it… 😉 But yeah: Suicide/Silver Apples through Xasthur…