VRRESTO

Upon first hearing, this album was just too much. What happened to old Ruins? You know...the music that I thought I could almost follow, with those amazing licks, heavy riffs, and seriously hilarious operatic vocals? What I found on this album, outside of the opener "Snare", which was a great move by Yoshida, was an impossibly complex conundrum simply too difficult for my brain to penetrate. Given time, though, and afterseeing a few shows with this new, even faster bassist Hisashi Sasaki, I began to get it. To me, Vrresto is the sound of some serious sound exploration. It may not be the most concise album, and perhaps not as focused as the album that follows it (Pallaschtom), but for those committed to exploring it, it yeilds some great moments. It has a somewhat jazzy feel, and features a wide variety of sounds...the only thing lush enough to be comparable in Ruins discography at its time of release was Burning Stone, yet Vrresto expanded on that palette with up-to-date technology that provides strange string effets, here and there, some intense guitar-solo-type wailing, and what sounds like a vibraphone at one point. Also there are some crazy effects on the bass at some points that make it sound sped-up/slowed-down simultaneously. Whoah. The vocals are brilliant as usual, with more extensive use of harmony and weird mouth sounds than before. This one's an intense journey. "Laipthcig" and "Vrresto" are the standout tracks, but the album has extensive memorable passages throughout...it's just that it tends to ebb and flow like some type of ocean wave rather than a clear procession of separate tunes.