Having an intro always gives a record a certain gravitas. It tells you this matters before a proper song has even begun. On “Hymns From The Hills”, “Intro” does exactly that, setting Poison Ruin apart from a lot of punk bands straight away. This lot have always had their own strange sense of grandeur anyway, and the medieval-fantasy imagery that runs through the record only adds to that. But as the background makes clear, this is not about historical reenactment. It is about myth, symbolism and trying to make sense of the rot around us by reaching for something older, stranger and more resonant. Poison Ruin have long understood that point. They do not just sound different, they feel like they inhabit a different world altogether.
Then “Lily Of The Valley” arrives and proves the point musically. There is a chug here, sure, but also melody and harmony, and that combination is what makes this band so much more interesting than simply another punk group playing at abrasion. “Hymn From the Hills” underlines that further. This is a record where the riffs and the groove matter just as much as anything else, and where the lead work is happy to take its time rather than just slash and burn.
It also feels like Poison Ruin are pushing themselves a little further out this time. “Eidolon” is heavier and the voice harsher, while “Howls From the Citadel” shows how effective they can be when they allow the songs to breathe and float a little. Truth be told, that one is damn near prog in places. “Pilgrimage”, meanwhile, is not a million miles from metal, and that only strengthens the feeling that Poison Ruin are operating in their own lane, taking bits from wherever they fancy and making them answer to their own vision.
Even when they lean hardest into punk, they still cannot resist twisting the formula. “Guts (Lay Your Self Aside)” is probably the most punk thing here, but even then they throw in a touch of spoken word in the bridge, just to make sure it never settles into anything too straightforward. And that is why “Turn To Dust”, a sub-two-minute maelstrom, lands as such a surprise. Not because speed is alien to this band, but because they usually prefer to unnerve you by degrees.
There is something unsettling about the way Poison Ruin do things, and “Puzzle Box” absolutely thrives on that. Then “Serpent’s Curse”, half-spoken and ominous, does nothing to disprove it. “Sleeping Giant” feels like it goes wherever it wants, dragging you deeper into its own nightmares and showing that this band does not always need words to make its point.
By the time “Crescent Sun” turns up all fuzzed-up and genuinely sinister, with that line about “the smell of metal in the air”, it feels less like singing and more like some cracked narration from the edge of a battlefield. That same atmosphere hangs over “The Standoff”, which keeps a grip on itself right up until the cry of “you see the whites of their eyes”, at which point all that restraint feels like it is hanging by a thread.
What makes “Hymns From The Hills” work so well is that it balances cynicism, defiance and bravado with real patience and craft. It sounds mythic without becoming daft, heavy without becoming clumsy, and strange without ever losing its pull. Poison Ruin are still recognisably Poison Ruin, but this also feels like a departure, or at least a deepening of what they already do so well. In lesser hands that might have become a mess. Here, it becomes a world of its own.
RATING 8/10
