LIVE IN GUANG ZHOU, CHINA

Ah, Ruins. I have always wanted to check them out since I got (and basically fell in love with) the four Koenjihyakkei albums. This was my first full Ruins album that I got to hear, and I was incredibly impressed with what I heard. The band is only drums and distorted bass with various other effects occasionally, along with the band members' manic screaming. For some listeners, that alone is probably enough to make you run away doing some manic screaming of your own. If you're still interested, though, this may be a band for you to check out, and they are INCREDIBLY tight playing live, based on this album and some videos I've watched of the band playing. I'm essentially a Yoshida Tatsuya fanboy at this point, having loved every project of his which I've listened to. His drumming is intense, complex, loud, and just about all over the place. Sometimes I swear he's got six or seven extra arms to play with. The bassist (on this album, Sasaki Hisashi is the lucky guy) in Ruins is always top notch, and hyper to boot. As for the compositions, they start in strong and fast and don't let up for almost 50 minutes. Everything is a lot of fun, and their medleys are insane. I didn't realize it was possible to play bits of over 30 prog songs in just over two and a half minutes, but they pull it off well. I don't recognize everything they do in the Classical Music medley, so I can't comment on how many pieces they do in it.

If you're a fan of any of Yoshida Tatsuya's projects or high energy Zeuhl, yet haven't checked out Ruins yet, this is a pretty good place to start from what I can tell. Four stars for now.