Ruyned – Sacrificium
Release Date: 26th June 2026
Label: Osmose Productions
Bandcamp
Genre: Blackened Thrash, Speed Metal.
FFO: Hellripper, Bütcher, Ripper, Midnight, Bonehunter, Cruel Force, Bewitcher.
Review By: Aeons Burning
Romania’s Ruyned has three things on their mind: speed, metal, and sleaze. Their sophomore album Profanum Sacrificium is my first exposure to ‘em, and it’s exactly as fun as I anticipated. I’m a sucker for some good old-fashioned blackened speed metal, and Ruyned deliver nothing less than that. The only real question is how does Ruyned stand up to giants like Hellripper, Bonehunter, Bütcher, and Cruel Force? After all, these are some absolute TITANS in this rather niche style of metal, and one of the biggest downfalls of a relatively unknown band playing blackened speed/thrash is the inevitable “I’d rather listen to these other bands” argument. Thankfully, Ruyned carve out a sound fun enough that I’d pick these guys as well as the others, which really cements them as true up-and-comers.
Ruyned write songs with fun as the primary motivator, and nothing encapsulates that quite like the first proper track Speedchain. This is fast and riffs like a motherfucker, which is to be expected, but if blackened speed doesn’t riff, I don’t want it. The true highlight across Profanum Sacrificium is the unbelievably smooth bass playing of Tiberiu Olescher, who as far as I can tell isn’t in any other bands, but this dude is one of the best bassists I’ve heard in recent memory. The highlights come early with Sex Commander 666, which sounds like a long-forgotten Bonehunter track and adds a nice helping of sleaze all the while shredding your face off with riffs. Ruyned also nail it on the production aspect, because Profanum Sacrificium happens to be one of the slickest sounding records I’ve heard in quite some time. That’s not to say I have zero issues with this, though.
The intro, interlude, and outro on Profanum Sacrificium, while campy and not quite as pointless as other bands, absolutely do not need to be here, and I’m of the firm belief that if your album is below half an hour such as this, you can fill the void with either longer tracks or just add some shorter blazingly fast tracks rather than killing the momentum entirely. However, despite the hiccups, Ruyned have delivered quite the fun album, and I do plan on returning to this throughout the rest of the year when I have an itch to just go smooth-brain mode and listen to copious amounts of speed metal and its likenesses, preferably while drinking with the boys. All hail the speed metal wheel.
(3.5 / 5)
