Ruled by Reason – The Dawning of Dystopia (2011)

For people like us that like to put things into genres, bands like Ruled by Reason pose a serious issue since we can’t really figure out where they fit. This new coming band from the USA has influences from Deathcore, Metalcore, Melodic Death Metal, and countless other genres, so all we can say is that the band’s music is not Black Metal, not Doom Metal, not Viking Metal and definitely not Gothic Metal, but rather a wide variety of more modern genres (the –core shit) and some Melodic DM influences.

Moving on to better use of our words, “The Drawing of Dystopia” features 8 hard hitting tracks that will sure please all fans of music with melodic guitars. Yes, the Metalcore/Deathcore influence is the dominant elements of this release, but the band’s guitar acrobatics (like on the “Dr. Jekyll…” track CoB solo rip-off) gives them an upper hand over all the crappy bands in the scene.

After the album title hypnotic intro track, the band explodes full on with very aggressive vocals tied together with crushing guitar riffing and an excellent production that will allow you to appreciate every single element of the carnage. “We Met Destruction” is only the first aural assault the band launches into your head.

The Metalcore-ish sounding clean vocals of “Dr Jekyll Sleeps Alone Tonight” threw us a bit off balance, especially after such levels of brutality but it somehow just feels right and gives the song an extra layer of richness. The vocal work again gets weird in “Look to the Stars”, but the stellar guitar work and the deep growls make this song brilliant and very intense. Here some of the screams/guitar work sounds a bit too much like older CoB, but still different enough to keep them out of the copyright infringement zone.

“The Last Prophecy” is a track that takes on a whole different style than the rest, but gives the listener a chance to catch their breath and enjoy a less core-ish version of the band. The closer “Dorsia” is a very typical Deathcore track, and while it’s not the best we’ve heard, the band does a crushing job on it.

We have to say that we found ourselves liking “The Dawning of Dystopia” more than we expected. This is probably due to the amazing guitar work of the band and the variety of elements the mix into their sound. While they are still ‘modern metal’ sounding, the band does a great job in not trying to mimic everybody in the scene and beat listener into submission with an immense variety of riffs and solos.

Release: March 28th, 2011

Country: USA