01.Tennessee Elegy
02.Highly Explosive
03.Walk of Shame
04.Deconsecrated
05.Middle Finger
06.Vultures
07.Seventh Sacrament
08.Reckoning
09.The Soulless Beast
10.Mean Street
Tairrie B Murphy (Vocals)
Mick Murphy (Guitar/Bass/Drums)
Produced by Mick Murphy & Joel Stooksbury ‘A SouthernRevelation’ was recorded at
Soundtrack Black Studio deep in the snow covered hills just outside of Knoxville,
Tennessee during the bone chilling month of January 2011. Unrepentant, unrestrained and unforgiving, this is without a doubt, My Ruin’s meanest and most pointed album to date.
A highly focused, intensely passionate and cleansing record that invites it’s listener on a personal journey of retribution. Staying true to their sound and confrontational lyrical delivery ‘A Southern Revelation’ stands alone in My Ruin’s catalog with renewed razor sharp, violent scream vocals and spoken word over stone cold crisp yet doomy metallic rock guitar riffs. While friendship is a fashion and honesty is the holiest disease, this is their seven daggers of Megiddo; this is their slaying of the beast.
The new album opens with a requiem; a visceral funeral for the sins of a friend as
‘Tennessee Elegy’ comes in with a thunderous roar of sound on top of white and snowy
ground. The harsh cold reality of the language hits after the intro explodes into
chugging riffs that are reminiscent of a large engine turning over in the dead of winter which sets the temperature for the record. As hot as a shot of Old No. 7 Whiskey, ‘Highly Explosive’ is a vitriolic and volatile Molotov cocktail of calmly spoken, contemplative anger fueled words that reach their boiling point, bursting into fiery spit choruses charged with big rock guitar chords and bashing drums. With its catchy 70’s style gritty riffs offset by abrupt changes of time signature musically kicking things up in the middle and then dragging the doom at the end, ‘Walk of Shame’ takes lyrical aim at those self important personalities so desperate for fame and rock stardom in a City of Angels.
Multi-instrumentalist Mick Murphy is a one man band who remains as solid as he is
unrelenting with each album recording. Like an old school pro, never missing a beat, he moves fluidly from instrument to instrument with his amped up head bang inducing song structures and bone crushing guitar, drum and bass lines as exquisite as ever. A master of heaviosity whose roots are still firmly planted in the Sabbath influenced swagger of the seventies complimenting his no nonsense thick riffs and huge solos.
Mick’s understanding of each instrument he is playing packs a power far beyond the strength of one musician. Mick has been called one of rocks ‘best kept secrets and most electrifying guitar players’ according to Michael Molenda, Editor in Chief of Guitar Player Magazine.
‘Deconsecrated’ is a fast and furious fateful liturgy to self preservation with the
innate desire to keep it sacred amongst the secular society of false friendships and
family values. The song burns its way true to form, from verse to chorus ushering in the stomping head banging mid section that pays homage to the albums title taking the listener on a journey of religiously inspired lyrical retrospect. Detailed with intense imaginative hatred and poetically cruel intentions, ‘Middle Finger’ is a snarling and sinister catchy mid tempo rocker that builds and grows like a grudge getting more aggressive musically enhancing the murderous violent fantasy theme. This is a cathartic and long overdue fuck you that conjures up images of brutality while vilifying and bitterly mocking the arrogance of a deceitful man devoid of conscience and destined to be punished for his lies and betrayal of trust. Setting the mood with it tripped out arrangement and haunting aesthetic as painful as it is personal, the Devil is in the details of ‘Vultures’ which is an honest, heartfelt lament reflected in a lyrical palette of remembrance for a complicated friendship set in the digital era of ego verses the analogue age of artistic integrity. With its slinky feel, ‘Seventh Sacrament’ is a dissonant and dirty memoriam to ‘Ghosts and Good Stories’ that faithfully speaks to the soul of the album and defines it as My Ruin’s 7th juggernaut of rock and roll atonement.
As the metal world’s patron saint of blasphemy and one of its most harrowing performers, Tairrie B has been a trailblazer for women in underground rock and one of the pioneers of ferocious-style female vocals with her trademark scream firmly in place since 1993. Often imitated but never duplicated with her distinct brand of stylish violence and storytelling, it’s her unique throat and unapologetic language that sets her apart from the many women who have followed in her footsteps over the years.
With My Ruin’s latest pièce de résistance ‘A Southern Revelation’, Tairrie remains true to self and form, once again reborn with a new fire inside her but as outspoken and confrontational as ever delving into the dichotomy of her dark places where God and the Devil play muse while continuing to perfect the craft she originated with her fine art of screaming.
Revenge is sweet and ‘Reckoning’ is a relentless steamroller of a track that pulls no punches delivering a well deserved raucous attack of reprisal. This is a merciless riff raging barn burner that rips apart a self-righteous reputation and reduces it to ashes.
The dark spoken word narrative tells the cryptic parable like tale of ‘The Soulless
Beast’ which is a metaphor to depict a man possessed, a malevolent monster of a track exposing the pure evil in a person that manifested itself into the Biblical
interpretation of the Anti Christ in the Book of Revelation. This is the albums slow and low grinder revealing rumbling verse parts which expand into loud choruses culminating in the doom heavy sound of classic stoner metal.
Album closer ‘Mean Street’ is My Ruin’s sexy red lipstick kissed version (tapping intro and all) of the opening track from Van Halen’s slightly underrated Fair Warning album.
My Ruins 7th album "A Southern Revelation" is available for free Download, information at
www.myruin.net
Rating 8/10
For fans of: Gasoline Thrill, Nashville Pussy, Lydia Lunch, Arch Enemy
