Combat Ruination

Feeling a little paranoid about the way society is heading? So are these guys – and they’re here to sing about the possible result of all of your fears.

Pros

Cons

When I first put Combat’s Ruination in for a spin, I was a little surprised. Sure, the record’s sound, though finely recorded, has the rough edge of punk rock that reminds me of Municipal Waste’s interpretation of thrash, but right from the start Ruination is discordant and jarring in a way that thrash generally, well, isn’t. However, I quickly found that surviving the record’s dissonant assault turns out to be well worth the effort, as prolonged exposure to Ruination (say two or three listens) brings a profound sense of metal satisfaction.

Lyrically, Combat takes the lyrical themes of apocalyptic violence so favored by many early thrash bands (think Metallica’s “Disposable Heroes”) and pushes them to their logical extremes, infecting every song with dark images of modern war, technological destruction and evolutionary competition as Mad-Max-style sci-fi themes that convey the dominant message: that we’re all doomed to be betrayed by our computers, crushed by our warmongering governments and driven to extinction by our amoral science. The music powering these themes dovetails nicely with the message of chaos and destruction: raw, grinding and yes, occasionally even dissonant, it makes for the perfect accompaniment to the bleak picture painted in the words. There are some issues – the single guitar attack with overdubbed solos take something away from the music’s power and this is not an album that gives the listener a lot to explore beyond the first few listens – but overall a good release and worth some regular rotation in your collection.