Irish trio Empires To Ruins have crafted an engaging rock sound that aims to get your fists pumping and your brain thinking, and they describe as “dynamic, nuanced and aggressive.”
The trio of Glenn MacLennan, Paul Stewart and Kyle Shirlow, who hail from the north coast of Ireland, have been playing music together for nearly 20 years through various bands and separate music ventures. But they reunited last year to start work on a new project, which eventually became Empires To Ruins.
The new band debuted with their single Peacekeepers in March. The track opens up with light electronic sounds and big shouted vocals that give way to lively guitars then the shouted vocals answering clean vocals. It flows into a catchy chorus “I may not know their names, But I damn well know their story, Their cities burn in flames, In the name of all that’s holy, This is still called treason, I call it a betrayal, So give me one good reason, Why evil should be prevail.”
A cool little section of twisting guitars drop into a powerful second verse of “Build your deception, rig the election, Control the narrative, some may be fooled but the rest will not forgive, This can’t persist,
When deaths rise and distrust gets deeper, You must desist, How dare you call yourself a peacekeeper.”
A second chorus gives way to lighter vocals before intense vocals repeat “Abandon all hope, Ye who enters here, There’s nothing left but pain, There’s nothing left but fear.” There’s then a long list of countries that have seen their share of social challenges and oppression to bring the track to an end.
On the track, Glenn told us: “It’s a weird feeling, not least because we’ve been playing music together for such a long time, yet we hadn’t written anything original with one another for over a decade prior to last year. Life somewhat got in the way; we chose to have kids, pursued careers and whatnot.. then there was Covid. The world has changed a lot since we last wrote music together, yet here we are back where we started all those years ago, more excited than ever for the world to hear what we have to offer.
“We’ve honestly been blown away by the hugely positive reception we’ve had so far. At the time of writing, our debut single has amassed over 2,000 streams on Spotify alone (now more than 10,000), earning a place on several playlists in the process. We’ve had reviews and features on music blogs and publications, as well as a generous helping of radio air time, all in the space of a fortnight – not bad for 3 stressed-out Dads with full-time jobs!” Check it out in the stream here:
The band followed up that debut track with Losing Faith, which was released in July. It opens up with jaunty guitars and rolling drums that feed into laid-back vocals that intensify before a big catchy chorus. An effects-ridden guitar comes in midway through, feeding into another catchy chorus that tees up another outro of spoken words. Check it out in the stream below:
The Empires To Ruins sound has been influenced by a wide range of bands, including the likes of Biffy Clyro, Bullet For My Valentine, Foo Fighters, Funeral For A Friend, Rise Against and Reuben.
And on what inspires them to write music, Glenn told us: “Instrumentally, it’s just the love of playing and the buzz of coming up with something new that inspires us to write. All members contribute to the songwriting process and we’re always bouncing ideas off one another. Lyrically, our tracks are pretty much all in the third person, and we tend to explore topical issues that we feel strongly about. Take Peacekeepers as an example, we delve into themes of conflict, exploitation and oppression from an outsider’s perspective.”
The trio are yet to play a live show as Empires To Ruins, but expect that to change along with more new music coming soon.
You can follow Empires To Ruins on Instagram and TikTok , and check out their music on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.
GigRadar 