ALL
MUSIC GUIDE BIO:
Playing dark-hued pop music that strikes a balance
between melody-driven pleasure and guitar-fueled
malaise, New Ruins started as a two-man recording
project featuring Elzie Sexton on vocals, guitars,
and keyboards and J. Caleb Means on vocals and
guitar. Sexton and Means both grew up in southern
Illinois, and became friends in their early teens.
Sexton and Means formed a punk rock band together
when they were 14, and worked together in a variety
of musical projects until they both left town
to go to college. Means traveled north and attended
film school, while Sexton enrolled in an art college
down south; however, the two friends kept in touch,
and in addition to getting together to make music
during breaks from school, they began sending
tapes of works in progress back and forth, collaborating
through the mail. After graduating, Sexton and
Means both ended up back in Illinois in the Champaign-Urbana
area, where Means opened a small recording studio,
Boombox Studios. When not busy with clients, Means
would work on new music with Sexton, and in 2004
New Ruins were born. After a year in which the
duo was strictly a studio project, New Ruins began
playing occasional live gigs in the summer of
2005, and before long they added a rhythm section
to fill out their sound – bassist Paul Chastian
and drummer Roy Ewing. In 2006, New Ruins began
recording their first full album, The Sound They
Make, which was released by Hidden Agenda Records
in the spring of 2007.
AVERSION.COM:
The band's The Sound They Make finds the Illinois
outfit shuffling through a series of acoustic
and roots elements to arrive at a sound that's
steeped in Americana and roots-rock, but without
all the sentimental ties to the past. Dabbling
with drones and organs behind the lazy melancholy
of the duo's electric/acoustic roots-rock doesn't
hurt to pull the Sound They Make out of the nostalgia
gutter and into a section of heartland all New
Ruins' own...
AQUARIUS RECORDS:
Anyone who has lived in a small town long enough
has probably felt the inner struggle between the
desire to move to an exciting city and the comfort
and ease which comes with the affordability of
a small town (especially a college town). Couple
this struggle with winters that never seem to
end and it's no surprise that The Sound They Make's
opener "Ships" explodes with anxious
guitar riffs and pressing organ lines that crescendo
into melancholic vocals recalling roads too often
travelled and pitting urgency against somebody's
likely kind reminder that "we have the rest
of our lives." This apprehensive eagerness
paired with two distinctive vocal ranges that
could be a perfect octave apart (imagine if Isaac
Brock and Doug Marsch formed a dark folk band)
make for an impeccable alt-gothic country album
that's already garnered comparisons to John Fahey,
Iron and Wine, Old 97's, and Grant Lee Buffalo,
but still manages to stand alone.
ALL MUSIC GUIDE REVIEW:
New Ruins describe their music as "Small
Town Midwestern Gothic," and that summary
is good enough that Elzie Sexton and J. Caleb
Means, the two musicians who comprise the group,
ought to consider rock journalism as a sideline.
While New Ruins' first album, The Sound They Make,
is brimming with pop hooks and hummable melody
lines, an air of malaise permeates these 11 songs,
and while this isn't the typical gloom-struck
synth wailing one usually associates with the
word "goth," the simple organic approach
of this music (with acoustic guitars often high
in the mix) generates a compelling and evocative
unease all its own. Sexton and Means originally
launched New Ruins as a home recording project,
and there's a modesty to their production and
arrangements that suits the songs quite well;
the open spaces in the arrangement on "Flowers"
allows the refrain of "I've been in this
town so long" to take on a weariness it might
not have generated otherwise, the low-tech synthesizer
on "Records" adds a very real charm
as it floats over the simple percussion beds,
and the drowsy vocals and insistent guitars of
"Attic" suggest Dinosaur Jr. trying
to be quiet for the benefit of their neighbors.
While the material on The Sound They Make gets
a bit samey by the end of the last track, the
album also generates a tonal and thematic unity
that adds to its power -- New Ruins manage to
make music that sounds both sad and pretty without
seeming self-indulgent, and their moody palette
is both imaginative and absorbing. It's an impressive
debut, though one hopes New Ruins have the sense
not to stray too far from the concision that makes
The Sound They Make so memorable.
EMUSIC FEATURE REVIEW:
A stunning debut of alt-gothic country…
It could be argued that the best songs are born
of troubled relationships — a fact fully
supported by the harrowing debut from the Chicago
group New Ruins. Witness: chief Ruiners Elzie
Sexton and J. Caleb Means have known each other
for over a decade now, first crossing paths at
age 15 and together weathering punk phases and
folk phases and finally coming out the other side
weathered and jaded. New Ruins was born while
its members were in college — two different
colleges, separated by 600 miles (that's where
the "troubled" comes in). Sexton and
Means exchanged tapes via the mail and met on
breaks to write and record and collaborate, knowing
that all good relationships require dedication
to overcome problem spots. Fortunately, The Sound
They Make was worth the effort it took to create
it. In eleven songs of grim, ravaged beauty, New
Ruins recall the National and American Music Club
and Grant Lee Buffalo without copying any of them
outright. Both Sexton and Means have deep, dire
baritones, and their songs are invaded by a kind
of shadow and sorrow that bleeds into even the
up-tempo numbers: "Ships" is propelled
by a rocketing tempo and ragged guitars, but the
morose vocal keeps repeating "holes in our
ships." "Book Lung" rattles like
a bum carburetor, cacophonous percussion and a
low, groaning cello guiding the song to its ominous
concluding refrain: "Your ghost still walks
all around these hills." It's that sentiment
that best sums up The Sound They Make: snapshots
of spirits floating through places in time, half-remembered
memories of people loved and forgotten. The record
feels like a scrapbook, its minor-key strumming
and lowing strings as brittle and yellowed as
aging oak pages. And that's where that foundational
relationship becomes an asset: Sexton and Means
disappear into each other, twin voices that help
each other sort out the photographs, piece through
the details and create new fictions. Their characters
occupy the empty space between desperation and
resignation. With friends like these, who needs
memories?
BLOGGERS...
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