Ruin

For fans of extreme metal, the 2000s will go down in history as a time in which Europe dominated the death metal/black metal field (especially the Scandinavian countries) while the United States dominated metalcore. But where there are rules and patterns, there are also exceptions; the U.S. has its share of death metal and black metal bands in the 21st century, and Europe has its share of metalcore and hardcore bands. One of England's metalcore-friendly bands is Architects, whose second album, Ruin, is best described as metalcore with a strong noise rock influence. Architects don't have the groove-minded outlook of Hatebreed and Throwdown, two of the best metalcore bands in the U.S.; their harsh, violent, claustrophobic material is a lot more angular. While ultra-dense tracks like "Sail This Ship Alone," "Hunt Them Down," "Buried at Sea," and "Running from the Sun" don't quite fall into the technical metalcore category, angularity is a big part of the equation on this nasty sledgehamme