Unfathomable Ruination is a British brutal/technical death metal act. Once just one of many faces in the UKDM underground, they slowly rose above the rest of the pack and became a well-loved underground act that has started to gain some serious momentum.
Formed in London in 2010 by Rob Newson (vocals), Dan Herrera (guitar), Tom Carter (bass), and Doug Anderson (drums) (though Carter did not last more than a few months and was replaced by Federico Benini), the band quickly released a self-titled demo EP on the American underground label Sevared Records that same year. The release slowly but surely made the rounds in the blog circuit, and various shows took place over the next year. Newson did not last very long, however, and Dan Neagoe (Eye of Solitude) quickly took his place. Recording for a full-length occurred at some point in early 2012, and Misshapen Congenital Entropy, their full-length debut, was released that September, while Ross Piazza joined the band as a second guitarist at some point during the year. The album spent the next year or so building up underground hype, including several brief tours, though Neagoe left in early 2014 to focus on Eye of Solitude, and Herrera's old Fleshrot bandmate Ben Wright took his spot. Idiosyncratic Chaos, a two-song EP, was released later in the summer of 2014, and the band slowly increased their activity level before buckling down to write their next release. The band went back into the studio around the beginning of 2016, and Finitude, their sophomore full-length, was released that August to great critical acclaim. Business continued as usual for the next year or so until Federico Benini was ejected in mid-2018, after which Benny Green joined, and the band additionally signed a new deal with Willowtip Records. The band also slowly began work on a new album, though Green was quickly fired in early 2019 and was replaced by Jake Law, who jumped in right as they were tracking the third full-length. Enraged & Unbound was released on November 22, 2019.
As of 2022, Ben Wright has left the band, citing a need to focus on his family. Mallika Sundaramurthy was announced as his replacement.
Discography:
- Unfathomable Ruination (2010) (demo)
- Misshapen Congenital Entropy (2012)
- Idiosyncratic Chaos (2014) (EP)
- Finitude (2016)
- Enraged & Unbound (2019)
- Decennium Ruinae (2021) (EP)
The band contains examples of the following tropes:
- Ascended Extra: Mallika Sundaramurthy was a friend and supporter of the band from the very beginning who became Ben's on-call live fill-in after his availability waned, and when he left in 2022, she was an easy choice for his replacement.
- Big Fun: Ben Wright.
- Brutal Death Metal: Started off as a somewhat straightforward UK brutal death act before they quickly embraced a more technical sound.
- Concept Album: Enraged & Unbound is a loose one of these about various forms of mental illness.
- Driven to Suicide: "Fibres".
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The demo was a somewhat straightforward UK brutal death release with almost none of the chaotic technical elements that would become their trademark, while Misshapen Congenital Entropy lacked the blackened and dissonant elements that would come to define their later sound.
- Eldritch Abomination/God Is Evil: "Thy Venomous Coils".
- Empty Shell: "Occulta Violentiam"
- Epic Rocking: "Forge of Finitude" (8:14), "The Ephemeral Equation" (6:32), and "An Obsidian Perception" (6:02).
- Lead Bassist: Federico Benini and Benny Green were both Type As.
- Lead Drummer: Doug Anderson is known for his great technical ability and creativity and status as one of the two remaining founders of the band.
- Multinational Team: Doug, Dan, Ross, and Jake all currently live in the UK (where Jake was born and raised), but Doug is originally from Australia, Dan is originally from Ecuador, and Ross is originally from Italy (as was Federico Benini), Mallika lives in the Czech Republic and is originally from the US, and Daniel Neagoe was originally from Romania.
- New Sound Album: Several:
- Finitude was a more structured and less chaotic album that introduced prominent blackened and dissonant death metal elements.
- Enraged & Unbound features a substantially more melodic approach, with an increased lead guitar presence and burgeoning prog tendencies.
- Not What I Signed on For: "Pestilential Affinity", about learning that a cause that you believed was good that you invested a substantial amount of time into was in fact malevolent.
- Progressive Metal: They have more than a few shades of this on Enraged & Unbound, particularly on tracks like "A Prophetic Compulsion".
- Refusal of the Call: Ben Wright, originally; back when Rob Newson first left, Ben was the first person who Dan Herrera approached, but Wright was still focused on Fleshrot at the time and declined the invitation. When Dan Neagoe left, Fleshrot was also effectively done, and Wright accepted Herrera's second invitation.
- The Schizophrenia Conspiracy: "Codebreaker" is either this or some other disorder involving ideas of reference.
- Self-Harm: "Protoplasmic Imprisonment"
- Special Guest: They have had guest appearances from Giulio Moschini, Konni Luhring, Julien Truchan, and Sven de Caluwe, while Mallika Sundaramurthy was an on-call live fill-in before she replaced Ben.
- Technical Death Metal: Firmly on the brutal side of the spectrum, with a particularly chaotic and riff-oriented approach.
- Vocal Evolution: Ben Wright started using highs as well as lows on Enraged & Unbound.
