Ruins
by Grouper
  • Record Label: Kranky
  • Release Date: Oct 31, 2014
User Score
8.2

Universal acclaim- based on 43 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 36 out of 43
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 43
  3. Negative: 2 out of 43
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  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 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    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.    … Collapse

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 19 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 16 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 19
  3. Negative: 0 out of 19
  1. Uncut
    Dec 4, 2014
    60
    Depending on your mood or generosity, these are either indulgently doleful or movingly ascetic in their dutiful repetitions--worth investigating either way. [Jan 2015, p.71]
  2. The Wire
    Dec 2, 2014
    80
    It's an almost-pitch-perfect progression of eight tracks across 39 minutes. [Oct 2014, p.54]
  3. Dusted Magazine
    Nov 25, 2014
    80
    It’s somewhere between 2011’s Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill and, say, Peter Jefferies’s Last Great Challenge For a Dull World; there are discernible melodies here, but above them is an overwhelming sense of loss, and the musical chops to channel it.
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