Search - Ruins :: Pallaschtom

It Ruins you for most other bands

Eepaw | Adelaide, SA, Australia | 05/24/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There are some great albums by this band (Tzomborgha and Vrresto most notably for me), but Pallaschtom is my favourite. Incredibly inventive, tourniquet-tight, (think Fantomas with a smile) and if you're up for it, you can even sing-along in Ruin-ese (yup, the lyrics are included). There is a full sound here that you wouldn't expect from just a bass guitar/drum duo, due to overdubbing and the bass going thru effects, so don't be put of by the idea of "no guitar" - you won't miss it."

Put your head in a blender and press "Puree!"

D. Sloan | PORTLAND, OR USA | 02/03/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is truly brilliant stuff but man is it intense! Very tight musicianship, stop/start playing, almost all fast tempo, with a singing style that's amazingly like Serj Tankian. System Of A Down formed in 1995 and Ruins have been around since 1985, so I'm guessing Serj got hold of some of this along the way and incorporated the menacing-but-goofy-rolling-tongue singing technique. It works for this kind of music! The difference here is that SOAD sometimes slows down to play some power chords while Ruins is more a one-note-at-a-time (albeit often playing many one-notes in very interesting ways). If you're really looking for a name-check comparison, though, start with John Zorn or Mr. Bungle (although to my ears, Ruins are really more "listenable.")



And you really can't tell that this is a Japanese band, because they seem to have invented a new language of their own that doesn't sound Japanese at all. Your brain will strain to figure out what it is, but it won't have any luck. So, you'll give up and go back to admiring the high octane prog/avant/metal music. Don't get me wrong, though: Often "prog" or "avant" imply a lack of tunefulness. And while this music is not exactly Top 40 material, it is tuneful in it's own perverse way.



The only reason I deduct one star from my rating is that listening to this for a solid hour just might render you mentally incapacitated for a while. I'd recommend smaller doses, say 15 minutes at a go, preferably in a well-rested state.



This was originally released in 2000, and this 2005 reissue includes three new tracks: "Classical Music Medley," "Hard Rock Medley," [including bits of Hendrix, Cream, Chicago(!), Zeppelin (of course), Deep Purple, etc] and "Progressive Rock Medley" [including Yes, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Rush, Focus and lots more I couldn't pick out], just a couple of minutes each (in other words, crammed with goodies!). Well worth acquiring for these bonus tracks alone.



Be forewarned though: If your coworkers or neighbors (or, God forbid, your family) should overhear some of this, they might be more than a little concerned for your mental welfare.

;-)

"

Exercises in quirky annihilation

IRate | 11/28/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"3 1/2



All together, this long disc full of shattered, splintered, skewered deconstructionist art-rock from the Japanese duo packs a little too much offbeat punch it's own good. The schizophrenic, mathematically manic, howling pair kiss formality goodbye as they blaze through 19 tracks filled with breakneck bass and drums, ever-morphing rhythmic changes, and uncomfortably anxious vocals, leaving Pallaschtom an experience best left to fans of the spazz-core subgenre of which Ruins belong. Individually though, and even fragmented in between a tremendous amount of often unfocused shifting, lies an uncanny chemistry between these two methodical but reckless musicians which should make all but conservative musicians blush."