Liverpool band Beneath The Ruin offer up an intriguing fusion of aggressive metal, Djent grooves and huge breakdowns with engaging vocals, shoegaze and post-rock elements, which they describe as “progressive, melodic and melancholic.”
The sextet began when Jordan James (guitar) and Liam Kempton-Robshaw (drums) met on Join My Band and toyed with starting a band before doing their own things for a while. They eventually brought in Rory McDines on bass, added Scott Goode (guitar) and Dan Fido (lead vocals) around Christmas 2019 and began playing around the Liverpool metal scene before the COVID breakout. That put plans on hold but they soon completed the lineup after Drey Wallace (keyboards) contacted them through YouTube.
And on the sound they’ve honed, Jordan tells us: “Well, we’ve been described as Progressive Metal Duran Duran before, although we wish it was Progressive Metal Depeche Mode! With Drey as our keyboardist now, we’ve opened up millions of new doors for our sound. To cut it short, our verses are heavy and melodic, and our choruses are the catchiest choruses in all of chorus land.”
Our first taste of that was Shadow of a Statue, which is the third single from their debut album. It opens up with a big chugging riff and a big cry of “Drag me down” sees it launch into chunky guitars and driving drums. A brief verse gives way to more chunky guitars with a distant high-pitched synth line, before a jaunty riff supports more intense chorus vocals.
That nicely ties into the track becoming a little more progressive with engaging vocals supported by a fun riff and driving rhythms. Then a delicious guitar solo takes over, drops into synths before another cry of “Drag me down” drops into heavy guitars and drums, which flow into a big chorus. And hang on for the big bouncy outro!
On the track, Jordan tells us: “A lot of the inspiration behind Shadow of a Statue was Linkin Park. We wanted to capture that classic Nu-Metal riff and then throw in a catchy chorus and a little bit of our progressive influence around the bridge. The reception has been great, it’s not the lead single like Sandalphon or Uprising, but Shadow is definitely one we’re excited to play live with how bouncy and hard it hits.”
As alluded to, the band just released their debut album This Thing A Quiet Madness Made. The album opens up with the aforementioned Sandalphon, which begins with a chunky riff then mellow vocals that soon increase in intensity. It goes to new levels of heaviness midway through with a vicious scream and heavy guitars, the pace drops a little, but then a delicious riff takes over. Check it out here:
The album is packed with plenty more where that came from. Delta-VII shows the band’s diversity, with mellow verses building to powerful choruses followed by a really cool little riff then the album title track offers more of a glimpse into their progressive side. The album concludes with three plus-six-minute tracks, starting with the excellent Vader, which features intimidating riffs under engaging vocals before a mellow guitar solo.
That’s followed by lead single Uprising, which opens with laid-back guitars then huge drawn-out guitars and keyboards alongside rolling drums drop into a superb section of funky Djent goodness. That’s totally contrasted by delicate vocals taking over, before a darting riff kicks in alongside stabs of synth, which flows into a delicious chorus. A laid-back guitar solo takes over and gathers pace, then drops into big vocals before they go all 80s on us. And that flows into another catchy chorus to bring this banger to a close. Check it out in the video here:
The album closes out with They Spoke In Dissonance, which starts with looping keyboards and mellow vocals. But that’s blown out of the water by a vicious darting riff, driving drums and a haunting synth sound. The laid-back vocals return and are intersected by heavy guitars as it builds towards a big chorus. Big cries of “They spoke in dissonance” give way to a heavy electro-metal section then a cool stabbing synth sound is joined by disjointed guitars and intense rolling drums, before repeated cries of “We got lost along the way.” That flows into engaging vocals, which feeds into a powerful outro to bring the album to a heavy ending.
The Beneath The Ruin sound is influenced by the likes of TesseracT, Deftones, ERRA, Haken, Periphery, Sleep Token, Loathe and our former New Band of the Week Black Orchid Empire.
And on what inspires them to write music, Jordan tells us: “We tend to write about real life situations, it’s what we know best. Whether it’s mental health issues or just general daily life problems; if it resonates with the band and relates with the audience, it makes our connection more authentic. But there is also stuff we enjoy and are interested in, like video game lore. Our album is named after an SCP-3935 (Secure, Contain, Protect), and one of our songs is the spaceship Anakin Skywalker flew in the Clone Wars animated series (Star Wars).”
This Thing A Quiet Madness Made is out now wherever you get your music. But there’s plenty more to come from Beneath The Ruin, who’ve been on a tour up in the north of England, including loads of TikTok content and more playthroughs. They also plan to put the songs that didn’t make the final cut for the album to use, which is looking like being album two.
As Jordan tells us: “In between practicing for the tour, we’re experimenting with a ton of things at the moment. Like we said, we’re already looking at draft album two. All of This Thing A Quiet Madness Made was made during lockdowns over Covid and sending each other demos. Now, we’re in rooms together and able to write together. As much as we love the album and it really is made from our hearts, we have so much more to give. And also, Liam goes to the gym. Thank you for reading!”
You can follow Beneath The Ruin on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, as well as Discord, TikTok and Twitch, and check out their music on Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple Music and YouTube.
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