North From Here wrote:
Agreed with the central criticisms here, Alexander would be well-served to let someone else help streamline his ideas and this record was not as good as Exuvia, still I think you are being too harsh on the final assessment. Polar Hiss Hysteria did a lot for me as a track that went heavy with a proper riff, but you didn't comment on it. Sitewide the ratings on Ruins albums are consistently lower than I'd give them beyond Charles' score for the third album. Surely you'd go higher than Alex did on Rain Upon the Impure?
Perhaps a little on the harsh side, but I do tend to do focus less on the scores and just try to make them consistent with the writing in the review (words > numbers! the go-to excuse whenever a numeral score is questioned!) and past efforts from the same groups - it's definitely at least 10 points less than Exuvia, for instance, although across listens I wavered from 75-85 depending on how good I found individual moments.
Polar Hiss just didn't stand out to me as much as the others, although you're right that it's a little more focused on the riff - it does seem a bit repetitive to me, especially after the groovy awesomeness of Anchoress in Furs which implemented all elements so well. And I'd have to relisten to RUtI, been a while...
We do agree on your final point though. Mandatory act, that gets so much right I feel bad nitpicking.