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Ruins
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Ruins Image
Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 19 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.2

Universal acclaim- based on 43 Ratings

  • Summary: The tenth studio release from Liz Harris as Grouper was mainly recorded in Portugal in 2011 on a 4-track.
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Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 16 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 19
  3. Negative: 0 out of 19
  1. Tiny Mix Tapes
    Oct 31, 2014
    100
    With Ruins, Harris opens up a portal to one of those clearings, and I don’t feel quite as bombarded affectively and aesthetically (by problems, timelines, insecurities, noise, and other people) when I hear its call and disappear there.
  2. The Line of Best Fit
    Oct 28, 2014
    90
    It stands as both a fascinating new direction, and a heartbreaking memoir of a period now sinking into the past.
  3. Pitchfork
    Oct 28, 2014
    88
    Ruins has a vivid sense of place.
  4. musicOMH.com
    Oct 28, 2014
    80
    It’s a typically resourceful, subtle and mesmeric addendum--and one that underlines just how consistently excellent an artist Harris has been.
  5. The Quietus
    Nov 7, 2014
    80
    Harris deploys silence and sound artfully and masterfully throughout Ruins. And the closer you listen, the more intimate it becomes.
  6. PopMatters
    Nov 6, 2014
    70
    Ruins’ eight tracks include four with vocals and four instrumentals. Still, the tracks with vocals and those without are not very different from each other.
  7. NOW Magazine
    Oct 30, 2014
    60
    The quietness is also the project’s greatest weakness. At times, it leaves the album feeling incomplete or intrusive, as if we’re peeking in mid-thought.

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User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. ericcamargo
    Nov 6, 2014
    5
    Really not all that much.
    Yes, it is quite emotional at some points, and the almost ethereal sound (due to the production) of her voice are    Really not all that much.
    Yes, it is quite emotional at some points, and the almost ethereal sound (due to the production) of her voice are involving... Until it all just starts to repeat for almost 40 minutes.

    It doesn't FEEL as an honest album, more like someone trying to be someone (s)he's not. I just don't feel all the loneliness and sadness of it to be true, it seems she's just trying to fake it, to sell it.

    It's not that I can't like any album made with simple melodies, instrumentation and production (it works pretty damn well sometimes), but I just can't like an album that doesn't sound sincere (which is something that happens in every genre of music).

    Far from being a remarkable album, or even one of the year's best.

    In my opinion, of course.    … Expand