Poison Ruin : "Harvest"

The rough hewn vocals sit back in the mix. If we want to call it a mix. It is raw to the point of it sounds like they stuck mics in their practice space. It's pretty straight forward meat and potatoes punk, despite the medieval metal imagery on the album cover. Perhaps lyrically they are giving service to the serfs in the Dungeon master's guide but the vocals sit in the background making it a mute point. The general ...one, two , three ...go! tone of everything creates a uniform sound by the second song. They pick up the pace and break from this a little on "Torture Chamber" where I make out the words torture chamber, It reminds me more of Motorhead when they speed up into this more rock n roll attitude. 

There are several Dollar Store dungeon Synth like ambient interludes leading into songs. One of these is before the title track , which is the best song so far as the vocals have more purpose and come out to the fore front. The problem with punk is it can all sound the same, so the more thought put into the songs the better. This gives it an almost Ramones like feel, which is good news as the are great songwriters. "Frozen Blood" has slight metal influence to it. The cadence of the vocals is different, though buried in the clamor. The two "Resurrection" songs are back to back. The first has another Renn Fest intro, though there is very little to justify that in the actual song. These guys have a darker sound for punk, this is not pop pup by any means. The second "Resurrection" has more of a rock n roll feel to the guitars. The verse is more palm muted allowing the vocals to stand out.   

While it might not be the most original sound , you have to commend them for capturing the feel of old school punk. The spoken word part of "Blighted Quarterer" gives a slightly different shade to the narrative . The guitar attack is a little more sonic here.  "Bastard's Grace" is not banged out with the same level of grace. The album comes to an odd end with a more melodic instrumental. I will round this one down to an 8, as the rough production might give their sound a certain charm, being able to hear these songs fully realized with better production would serve the songs more than the sound. But this is real punk, which is not something that can be said for much music coming out these days. Dropping on Relapse Records.