Poison Ruïn – Hymns From the Hills
Poison Ruïn are catnip to certain tastes. The Philadelphia punk band, adorned with chainmail, armed with flails, cast in desaturated colors, recorded on—ostensibly—a space heater, influenced by Motörhead and Judas Priest, learned in the dungeon’s synth, come off like a targeted ad if you connect the dots. A band seemingly so ideal that if it weren’t confirmed that they originated as a one-man self-recorded act by Mac Kennedy, it might feel like pandering. Fortunately, any desire to decry Poison Ruïn for this too-idyllic visage was quieted by the music itself—it’s hard to argue with what’s good. Their second album, Hymns From the Hills, cements this truth by unlocking their potential.
For Kenndy to achieve this, he had to swallow his pride and address one of Poison Ruïn’s core aspects: the lo-fi production. The name-your-price appropriate recording quality on the band’s prior releases created unnecessary friction by subduing Kennedy’s vocals and amplifying the guitars to a wiry degree. An aesthetic choice for sure, but Hymns From the Hills retains the lived-in texture of early Poison Ruïn while improving the clarity. They’ve never sounded better (obviously), but they’re also never sounded more powerful and attentive. Kennedy admitted that he could not accomplish what Jonah Falco (Fucked Up) did with the mixing or what Arthur Rizk (whose production resume includes Power Trip, Integrity, Trapped Under Ice, and Blood Incantation) did for mastering.
The veteran touches from Falco and Rizk elucidate what made Poison Ruïn special and what was previously shrouded by the lo-fi production. Hymn to the Hills is crisp, and therefore many of its strides sound bolder. “Lily of the Valley,” nigh-scientifically arranged and performed as if to maximize punk’s catchiness, glistens in a complementary manner to the grizzly “Eidolon.” Similarly, the fogginess of “Howls from the Citadel” resonates thanks to the better production rather than being mired in fuzz. Its confidence is the same that the best dungeon synth conveys, the works with enough faith in their composition to disrobe the trappings of lo-fi production for atmosphere and cultivate their own aura.
Much had been made of Poison Ruïn and their dungeon synth affectations in the past, and they remain in more fleshed-out states like the aforementioned “Howls from the Citadel.” Hymns From the Hills grows beyond the binary box of “punk meets dungeon synth” Poison Ruïn could’ve been distilled to by bridging into other adjacent ranges without losing its vision. While the fantastical lean of “Sleeping Giant” and the images of an altar on “Pilgrimage” (among others) are transportive, the modern production and increased legibility plant them in medias res. In some ways, Poison Ruïn have their cake and eat it too, in that they conjure fantasy and reflect the moment. These aren’t mutually exclusive, and the payoff comes from the intermingling of dungeon synth, punk, and Falco and Rizk. You could say “Sleeping Giant” is the spiritual personification of a track like “Crescent Sun,” the abstracted side of the coin that puts the latter in a new light. Like a daywalker, Poison Ruïn exist in the tangible and the ephemeral worlds, giving the punk songs more gravitas.
Versatility is a virtue on Hymns From the Hills, and the record will likely cause more comparisons to build on the many Poison Ruïn have already received. The Legend of Zelda and Motörhead and, as our own Langdon Hickman put it, Led Zeppelin if fronted by The Damned, are all references previously deployed to characterize Poison Ruïn, arising from the fact they make here-and-now punk music that’s as good as their Celtic Frost tributes that’s as good as their dungeon synth. The wide net these comparisons cast indicates that they aren’t coy about their influences, yet what they’re making is distinct enough to evade a singular framing. Part of that is that Hymns From the Hills feels timeless, as if Poison Ruïn could’ve theoretically released it at any point in the past 50 years. You could put it beside The Replacements just as easily as you could beside Titus Andronicus. Partially, that’s thanks to the music’s humility, which prefers to stay within the realm of well-composed and tight rather than indicative of any technical progress in the guitar-dominated music world.
A bit of that, also, is because of the subject matter, which Kennedy expanded upon in our recent interview with him. “This is what Leonard Cohen does. It’s what Motörhead does. They write about shooting guys in the desert, but they’re not really fucking talking about that. They’re talking about feelings and life.” Poison Ruïn carry the lineage of story-oriented punk music in a new coat of arms, yet the underlying truth remains—this is simply heartfelt rock music. That foundation is enough that Poison Ruïn and their flairs, including the dungeon synth and the flails and the legitimate black metal opening of “The Standoff,” can remain true to it because it isn’t a stretch for them.
Label: Relapse
Year: 2026
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Poison Ruïn : Hymns from the Hills
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