Dead City Ruins
Dead City Ruins
•
January 13, 2015

It wasn't just the UK and Sweden which surprised me in 2014, as I also heard some pretty good music from the land down under that is Australia. Usually, I would never associate Australia with rock music even though there are famous bands which have come from there, but now I do associate that country with that genre thanks to the music I heard last year.
The band featured in this review are an Aussie band, who this year are releasing their sophomore album, which is also a self-titled as well and the band I speak of is DEAD CITY RUINS. Having started out their career in London here in the UK, they started making their way back home to Melbourne in Australia while playing as many venues as they could, including clubs and even pubs as well showing off their music to those that heard them. Having already received positive reviews on the live circuit, and even receiving praise from members of SKID ROW and UGLY KID JOE, this quintet are set to unleash their second album onto the world and that is what I shall be focusing this review on.
Given the fact that I was quite surprised at how good Australian Rock music can be when I heard some of it last year, I have high expectations from this band who I hope will do the same as those I heard in 2014. Things do get off to a good start when the first song plays, as it starts off cool slow paced intro for about 90 seconds before launching into a heavy faster paced Rock song, which gives you a little taster of what this band are capable of.
The guitars are nice and heavy and at times they sound quite groovy, funky and dirty (the same is also said for the bass riffs), but that is never a bad thing and the beats from the drums are quite heavy too. Vocal wise? The singer definitely knows how to add a bit of punch, power and pizzazz into his performance and can even hold a note for quite a long time and this shows us how much practice was into the performance as it's never usually easy being able to hold a note for a long time without wearing your vocal chords out. The only song where the singer doesn't sing is on the last song, as UGLY KID JOE singer Whitfield Crane takes the vocal spotlight instead and his performance is very good and I think his voice is a little bit better then Jake Wiffen's vocals, but then both are good but that's just what I think personally.
So far so good right? Well, sort of, as there is one thing that does bug me a bit and that's the vocals. Make no mistake, the singer does have some talent and there is some energy in the performance, although I think that it could have been re-worked a bit and also the guitars seem to drown out the vocals at times making it hard to hear the words at times. This is the only thing that bothers me a bit, but I guess it won't really matter too much if you just focus on enjoying the energy of the performance.
Verdict time now, and despite the issues I addressed with regards to the vocal performance, this album is quite good for the most part, as there's plenty of powerful energetic Rock music from both the instruments and the vocals, and if you ignore any quality issues here and there, you'll find yourself enjoying every minute and I look forward to seeing what the land down under that is Australia has to offer to us in 2015.<
7 / 10
Good

"Dead City Ruins" Track-listing:
1. Hapenzella
2. Til Death
3. D.I.B.
4. Hurt
5. Shot Through
6. Blue Bastard
7. Broken Bones
8. Dio
9. Bloody Tools
10. Rock 'N' Roll Damnation (feat. Whitfield Crane)
Dead City Ruins Lineup:
Jake Wiffen - Vocals
Tommy Teabag - Guitar
Sean Blanchard - Guitar
Tony Alkemade - Bass
Andy Alkemade - Drums
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