Hekata are a Russian death metal band and this is their debut album.
Hekata play a virulent mix of death metal, black metal, hardcore, crust, and grind. It’s quite the mix, and essentially results in songs that merge these influences into blackened slabs of Scandinavian-influenced deathcrustcore. Or something. You get the idea, I’m sure.
It’s to the band’s credit that it’s relatively difficult to know what to call their style of brutal belligerence. Death metal is probably the loosest catch-all, but that misses a lot out, and Hekata certainly aren’t your normal death metal act. The crust and hardcore influences add a level of energetic urgency, while blackened melodies tear out from the music like lethal predators.
Despite the interesting confluence of different aspects of musical sub-genres that we find on Ruin, the songs themselves are actually pretty straightforward affairs. This is not to their detriment, however, and they’re quite effective at what they do. Mixing riff-heavy mid-paced assaults, with faster blackened affairs, sharp melodic attacks, and macabre atmospheric sections, (to name a few), the six songs on Ruin rage and destroy as the playing time unfolds.
The vocals are mainly deep roars that sound very Swedish Death Metal to me, (yes, capitalised), with a side order of Vader. Rabid, serrated screams back these up here and there, and these sound dredged from a blackened pit of some sort, somewhere.
With only 25 minutes of material here Ruin won’t waste your time. It’s an enjoyable and pleasing selection of tracks, and I recommend that you check out what Hekata have to offer. It would be all too easy to overlook a band like this, but Hekata are worth your attention.
Wonderbox Metal 