Ripped To Shreds continue to impress with their second full-length, which draws together various ideas found on last year’s ‘魔經 – Demon Scriptures’ EP and fashions them into one cohesive, compelling whole. ‘亂’ (‘Luan’) is, at its rotten core, an old-school death metal album, but there’s more going on than pure HM-2 worship (though there is a fair bit of that too). Things are smartly constructed, catchily written and thoughtfully put together, with as much of a focus on the path ahead as the road that’s already been travelled. Hints of grind and sludge are suggested here and there while horror movie synth interludes are cut mercilessly short to make way for even more brutality, and the truly OTT guitar solo found on ‘Opening Salvo’ (not, mysteriously, the album’s opening salvo) is worth the price of admission alone. Combine all this with Andrew Lee’s lyrical explorations of Chinese myth, folklore and history and you’re onto rather a winner: come for the skull-smashing savagery, and, if your brain is left functioning, stick around for the education!
