ninehertz

This is my first real taste of the music of Maranatha, from Ohio, despite a lengthy history with releases dating back to 2012. I look at the vast back catalogue I now need to catch up on with relish, for King of Ruin makes quite the impression.

They are a duo, but the fullness and ferocity of sound masks any potential limitations a limited membership could face. The variety they bring across ten tracks is notable too, ensuring your attention is kept throughout. Primarily labelled as sludge, there’s a lot more here than that.

The first track features the increasingly common juxtaposition of tempos between sludge and grind, but the album gets truly going on Forget Me which comes out swinging, doom congealing into sludge as it slows near its finale, extremely satisfyingly so. There’s are nods to Primitive Man density with notes of Crowbar grooves in the main riff, with Conan styled vocals on the following Benefactor.

From there on, you notice the changes – subtle, incorporated into and comfortably sat with the sound, but, equally, a noticeable shift from the beginning. There’s the electro beat experimentation of Mourn as the clear marker for their diversity, but I hear metallic hardcore on one track, and on more than one occasion head into Trap Them or Mastiff worlds through pounding riffs and wide eyed intensity.

And then there’s Inheritance, near the album’s rear, the longest song here. The guitars and vocals are melodic and even when it goes heavier it is in a restrained manner, the whole something akin to latter day Baroness perhaps. It is evidence of the fantastic range of the album – they could easily write whole albums of each single styles as they succeed across the majority of the album, but instead provide us this neat tour of genres and approaches, making for an album that is as interesting as it is joyfully heavy.