Hailing from Athens, Blame Kandinsky style themselves as the Greek lovechild of Botch and The Dillinger Escape Plan, and dropped their debut album Spotting Elegance back in 2017, before hitting some high-profile tours around Europe including a support slot with Cavalera Conspiracy. 

The five-year gap between their debut and album number two Eclectic Ruiner  – in part due to a pandemic forced hiatus – has given them the chance to perfect the record which is now ready to be unleashed on Venerate Industries.

Lyrically, they have created a concept album styled around the pain caused by the everyday struggle’s humans face, and the record dispenses with any lengthy intro, diving straight into the abrasive verse of ‘Vague’ and a riff with a distinctly funky edge. The groove element to the riffing continues on ‘Complicit’ and it is clear that there is a mind-bending complexity to the guitar work of Marios Samaris, that the likes of Dillinger’s Ben Weinman and Kurt Ballou of Converge would be proud of. This track has a noodling atmospheric interlude before dropping again like a guillotine, as the rasping screaming vocals of Stratos Isaakidis return. 

Speaking of Converge, their influence is undoubtedly all over the record  with the songs of Eclectic Ruiner chaotic and intricately arranged. The album rushes through tracks like the funky and made for the floor raging post-hardcore of ‘Empty’, through ‘Gertrude’ and the foot stompingly infectious ‘Delusional’.  

And when Blame Kandinsky change it up slightly on the slower ‘Discomfort’, they show their aptitude as fine songwriters, while Isaakidis expresses a raw emotion in his vocals. Samaris once again showcases some extraordinary guitar playing on the outro, and it is really his work that makes Blame Kandinsky stand out amongst their peers in the post-hardcore scene. 

There are so many passages of his intoxicating and virtuoso playing that it is impossible to keep count, and what is most impressive is the way that the guitars and vocals work together, playing off against each other and melting into a bleak cacophony on ‘Ruined’, and the way the guitars stutter and cut in and out of the screaming on both ‘Chasten’ and ‘Ego’. 

The album provides a brief doomy instrumental interlude on ‘Piquerism’ and a track that really stands out in ‘Lisp’, with a multitude of quick-fire changes in tempo, a song which is sublimely powerfully and with some sumptuous riffing once again. 

Blame Kandinsky has unquestionably provided another strong release, to add to a vintage year of new music in 2022! 

Pre-order Eclectic Ruiner here: https://www.venerateindustries.store/blamekandinsky

8 / 10

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