Man's Ruin Revisited

While Ichor was mostly a collection of songs that didn't have much to do with each other and the influences ran wild, Utopia A.D. was a tight, yet extensive package of heavy metal with a heavy, Finnish touch. However, on Man's Ruin Re-Visited, The Black League have formed into something that they clearly have strived for, something that matches their image to the t. Even though there had supposedly been frictions in the band, apparently the writing sessions have been smooth enough since the sound is even more streamlined.

This new sound is a lot more rocking than their previous efforts. They didn't lack in groove either, but on Man's Ruin Re-Visited it is taken to new limits. Songs like Alive & Dead and The Healer are based almost solely on this newfound rocking groove and the title track and Old World Monkey utilize it to a large extent even though the former is one of the fastest rockers on the album. As can be assumed, with a lot more rocking atmosphere, the evident epic overtones of Utopia A.D. are completely gone. It is a shame since it was an avenue, which if pursued, would have led them to do something more memorable than this. Now Man's Ruin Re-Visited ends up being just an entertaining album, a sort of mixture of Motörhead, early Hellacopters and The Hurriganes with touches of Danzig and Sentenced. The Black League do their thing better than the aforementioned nowadays, but this style of straddling the fence between rock and metal and refusing to be fully either is in the end too mundane to hold one's interest for a long period of time.

Jarva's vocals are this time grittier and the multilayering is all gone. His rough yet melodic vocals save a lot on the album due to the songs being rather tedious at times with repetitious riffs and simplistic songwriting. Black Water Fever and Lost in the Shadows, I Walk Alone rely wholly on his vocals due to plain lazy songwriting. It seems that the band had run out of ideas since these songs sound like they were winged just to fill up the album. Here lies the main problem: lazy songwriting. Most of the songs start well but tend to lose momentum about two thirds of the way. This is a problem since the songs tend to clock in at three and half or four minutes. The songs tend to lack hooks as well. However, the single track, Cold Women & Warm Beer, is chock full of them and it is by far the best song on the album. From the rocking riffs, to long verses that keep you waiting for the catchy chorus. A couple of other songs have good hooks in them as well but they're calmer tracks and don't get under your skin as well as Cold Women & Warm Beer.