Ominous Ruin – Requiem – Album Review

23rd May 2025 0 By Laura Jane

Ominous Ruins‘ latest album, Requiem, has been an album I honestly think a lot of people may have been sleeping on. Not for the fact it’s utter garbage (It’s far from that), but the fact that a lot of people may not be familiar with this band! I’ll be honest, before giving this one a listen, I was oblivious on who “Ominous Ruin” were, so let’s do a quick introduction to this band and review “Requiem” which was released on 9th May 2025.

Who are Ominous Ruin? Ominous Ruin is a technical brutal death metal band from San Francisco, California. From initial discovery of this band straight off the bat, I thought, This sounds very Black Dahlia Murder-esque, and what’s not to love about that? Their sound is packed full of guttural vocals, blastbeat intense drumming, and riffs for days. Requiem showcases the outstanding talent from their new vocalist Crystal Rose, who, although she joined the band in 2023, is the first album of which she debuts as front woman for Ominous Ruin. Before giving “Requiem” a listen I did check some quick discography from Ominous Ruin, and there is a clear difference in vocal styles between Crystal and former vocalist Adam Rosado. Although I’m not in particular favour to either vocalist, I do have to compliment Crystal’s vocal ability as it does add depth and more dynamics to the band in terms of vocal showcasing, whilst the previous vocalist added a more brutal approach, both of which do a fecking fantastic job.

Requiem has a play time of 40 minutes 29 seconds, making it a fairly lengthy album in terms of play time, which we love to see. With albums seemingly getting shorter these days, I do have to give the band praise for keeping some good lengthy listens in comparison to some of the releases that are currently being thrown out into the world, so this does gain some brownie points.

Having listened to the album multiple times since its release, the highlighted tracks on this album for me, personally, are “Seeds Of Entropy”, “Divergent Anomaly”, “Fractal Abhorrence” and “Requiem“. As mentioned above with the switch in vocalists, “Seed Of Entropy” really does highlight the vocal capabilities of Crystal and it’s during this track where I was sat thinking “aight, okay missy… I see you”.

I honestly really can’t find much fault with this album, it’s an absolute solid release, but I do wish that there was some sort of curveball or wow factor thrown in, which may have led to a “wow” moment throughout the album.

I do have to say I would love to catch this band in the UK sometime, and honestly think they would smash it in our current music scene, as there is a lot to value and appreciate in their music. There is a lot of potential… A LOT OF POTENTIAL! (UK tour when guys?)

Overall, it has everything you’d want and desire from a technical death metal band. The only reason I could not score higher is that although the album slaps harder your local cliche bassist, it comes down to the good ol’ question of time “What makes this stand out from other bands of the same genre” and unfortunately, I can’t really pin point anything that made me think “ohhhh shit, this is fresh”. It’s bloody good but not quite cutting edge or gives the vibe of something “outstanding or boundary pushing”. However, with this being said… If you’re looking for a strong band to add to your ever-growing music taste, and looking for something that you may not be familiar with. I would highly suggest giving Ominous Ruin an add to your playlists.

I’d highly recommend this for fans of bands such as Whitechapel, Black Dahlia Murder, Suicide Silence, Lorna Shore and Carnifex.
Score 9/10