Poison Ruïn Tickets

Building on the strengths of their critically acclaimed work, POISON RUÏN returns with their new album, Hymns From the Hills. The Philadelphia punk band has developed their signature blend of grim mythology and scythe-sharp aggression in bold new directions, delivering a fresh repertoire of songs that feel equally earthy, undeniably grounded, and ghostly.

The band's vision has grown substantially, moving far beyond the tales of peasants and serfs that served as allegories for contemporary alienation in their earlier work. In this new release, their previous narratives of hardship and dispossession are revealed as merely one chapter etched onto an even more desolate tapestry: one populated by spirits traversing sunless deserts and withered hills, demonic instruments of torture that define the boundaries of the psyche, bodies transfigured into Luciferian serpents, and Sadean prisoners chained to the deafening silence of abandoned castle towers. The album is both a resounding reaffirmation of POISON RUÏN's signature sound and a departure from it: the crunchy, cassette-tape darkness and crushing rhythms their audience is accustomed to are reinforced by a carefully sculpted mosaic of new textures, from brushstrokes of sharp, Killing Joke-esque primitivism and blast beats worthy of the Relapse catalog, to crisp analog synth lines and ambient serenades reminiscent of Scott Walker and The Durutti Column. Like a snake coiling outwards, Hymns From the Hills expands POISON RUÏN's soundscape in imaginative directions without losing its center of gravity in the myth already established by the band.

Hymns From the Hills is meticulously composed. Like the rest of POISON RUÏN's work, this LP was self-recorded without the use of professional studio equipment. However, to meet the higher sonic demands of Hymns From the Hills, the project's mastermind, Mac Kennedy, moved to a private rehearsal space, abandoning his previous routine of squeezing recording sessions into the rare moments when the band's shared space was free. “Having extra time to breathe and get things right felt crucial this time around,” he notes. “The pressure of having to work quickly and in chaotic bursts used to feel productive to me, in that it infused the recordings with a raw, energetic spirit, but I started to feel that those working habits were preventing me from developing certain ideas that required a more deliberate and methodical approach.” To better serve the album's grander ambitions, the band enlisted the mixing prowess of Jonah Falco (Fucked Up, Career Suicide) and the mastering expertise of Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Trapped Under Ice, Cavalera, Integrity), who helped elevate the album's overflowing sonic variety to new heights of fidelity and confidence. Kennedy provided a second hand in the mixing process, splicing in rawer tape-recorded fragments to maintain some tonal continuity with the band's earlier work, creating a rich structure of unconventional frictions: crystalline flashes of polish that shatter through chasms of hissing low frequencies, only to crash moments later against the sharp lash of rusty chains.

Lyrically, Hymns From the Hills expands upon both the cynicism and defiant arrogance of the fantasy aesthetic established by POISON RUÏN. While the album continues POISON RUÏN's tradition of employing medieval-inspired fantasy imagery, Kennedy doesn't intend for these figures to be interpreted with historical accuracy. “I'm not particularly interested in conveying the historical facts of medieval culture. If we want to make sense of the present, we must employ a more mythical mode of language and symbolism to reach beyond the spiritual unease that surrounds us. A mythical truth resonates in any era, but its echoes call from outside of time. Medieval and fantasy imagery are simply personal and effective starting points for connecting with that mode of communication.”

With Hymns From the Hills, POISON RUÏN has achieved a feat of creative work that few have the courage to attempt, let alone the ability to execute so effectively. Hymns From the Hills ambitiously rewrites the rules of what punk is capable of, propelling POISON RUÏN's sound into expansive territories without sacrificing an ounce of the grim symbolism and uncompromising aggression that established them as an urgent voice in the world of extreme music.