The dark spell of Ritual Howls’ sixth album, Ruin, is cast in the first moments of lead single, “Follow the Sun”, as the clarion call of Paul Bancell’s reverberating guitar is anchored by the pulsing kick and flitter of Chris Samuels’ drum programming and the snarl of Ben Saginaw’s taut, fuzzed-out bass groove. More than a decade into their career, the trio continues to refine its nuanced alloy of industrial, goth, and post-punk to a new level of all-consuming fullness, and more than ever, the results embody the contrasts they have become known for, at once hauntingly bleak but kinetically catchy, intimately raw but tantalizingly mysterious.

1. Follow the Sun
2. Never Leaves You
3. Bad Idea
4. Digging for My Spirit
5. The Morning
6. Magnificut
7. Beg the Question
8. Enter the Recuser
9. What Can I Say