TVAM - Ruins: Album Review | Live4ever Media

Artwork for the TVAM album Ruins

4.5 stars hq

There’s a school of thought that says the deep cold emitted by soundscapes of this kind leave it hard to make connections with, but there’s an undeniable pulse to TVAM’s new album which seeks reciprocity and action.

It now seems certain that as a species we’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over, but does life on a permanent loop demand a soundtrack to match?

Joe Oxley (AKA TVAM, acronym which stands for Total Vehicle For Audio, Music) has been wrestling with existential dilemmas similar to that in the time since the release of his previous album High Art Life in 2022, and equally how these intractable questions might reshape the music he makes as a result.

The answer finds him in defiant mood: “The worst advice anyone can give you is, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. It’s always broken. It always needs fixing.”

More pointedly, he also chose to embrace the duality of modern existence, rationalising it with: “Hope and despair don’t cancel each other out, they can co-exist — that’s what makes it feel real.”

This sense of needing to live in multiple frames of reference, like a photograph of yourself being endlessly manipulated, is one of the main themes of Ruins, a record which, despite its inner confusion, manages to be uplifting and full of dramatic flourishes.

TVAM’s musical perspective has been rooted in an assemblage of tones and textures, many of which look back to the futurism of the later parts of the twentieth century, a time when robots, AI and mass surveillance by the state were science fiction.

Lead single The Words circles around these sorts of impossible choices, the singer explaining: “I started writing lyrics from the perspective of someone trying to find the last words they’d say to somebody – a completely impossible task…words could never articulate the true depth of feeling in that moment.”

The bridge is a thrilling one though. Locked around a guitar arpeggio, layered patterns and a heavenly chorus thread shoegaze and retro synth pop, the effect like early Ride covering early A Ha.

There’s much ying to that light seeking yang however. Opening instrumental Comfort Collar moves like a gloom set ballet, heavily indebted to The Cure’s doomy pre-goth roots, whilst Sweetness And Light is a smeary, tape-decayed vista that in spirit at least measures some of the menaced nostalgia inherent to Boards Of Canada.

Also present is an acceptance that, despite the feeling we have control over our destiny, some things just have to run their course.

With the anthemic Powder Blue, TVAM explores the phases of meeting turned obsession, an order that can’t be skipped, mapping a fait accompli which, ‘Jumps ahead to feelings of being trapped in a relationship, then the fear of not being trapped’.

There’s a school of thought that says the deep cold emitted by soundscapes of this kind leave it hard to make connections with, but there’s an undeniable pulse to Ruins which seeks reciprocity and action, a throb.

In this world, the buzzing danceability of Follow Me Home is made for subterranean encounters, and the visceral goth dynamics of Winter Rose create an atmosphere which is heavy on both dry ice and drama.

Is it easier to waltz in black or whirl in grey? On The Gloom asks this eldritch question in the guise of the former, whilst the epic post-punk soaked closer The Haunted holds back the darkness for as long as it can.

If we’re going to do the same things and expect different results, then there’s no reason not to embrace – even relish – music that centres in that cultural gridlock.

There’s no game on Ruins which hasn’t been played before, but the execution is so authentic that this doesn’t matter.

Black is still the new black.