Customer Reviews

Horror of Beauty

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This CD disappointed me. Yes they're still good, yes Tairrie still writes amazing lyrics and packs a gut wrenching vocal...BUT the great moments are fewer and farther between. It's not the "heaviness" that turned me off on this one, because I listen to other stuff harder than My Ruin, but it just seemed watered-down to me. The lyrics aren't as good and her scream seems to have diminished a little bit. There's more "I hate you, screw you" and less intelligence, which Tairrie is famous for. I like the CD but will not rave about it like I would the first two. Anyway, good tracks are "Spitfire,"Burn the Witch," and "Bravenet." I absolutely adore "Bravenet." THAT'S the Tairrie I know and love. But I also realize bands must shift and change in order to do be any good so let's just say I didn't like this change but it's still worth a listen.

My Ruin, what happened?
A while back, I worshipped at the alter of this band. They brought something new to a scene that DESPERATELY needed it. Tairrie B.'s honest lyrics and the band's captivating playing style caused me to listen to their first two CD's over and over and over, until those around me began to get sick of them. I eagerly anticipated their newest effort, The Horror of Beauty.
But this time, My Ruin didn't deliver.
The band who's diversity I was constantly praising had become the worst of the worst - a bad "metal" band. The Horror of Beauty lacks any spark whatsoever, jumping back and forth between boring and just plain awful. The music lack imagination, and the lyrics cover the same topic (the beauty myth) in every song. There is a HUGE difference between picking a theme for your album (Nick Cave is a master at it) and writing over a dozen songs that cover the same topic. From the insanely repetitive "Made to Measure" to "Weightless," which is simply impossible to listen to, The Horror of Beauty leaves a great deal to be desired. It all ends with a disappointing cover of PJ Harvey's "Rid of Me," which is unbelievably emotionless despite all of the screaming. How is it possible for the band fronted by the self-proclaimed "Scream Queen" to sound weaker than little ninety-pound Polly Jean?
Back on the subject of the albums lyrical content, one can't help but wonder what Tairrie is rambling about. For someone who claims to not care about what people think of her, she sure spends a lot of time trying to create an image for herself. "Graphic scenes of beauty have become what I despise," whines Tairrie, but she still appears in the albums artwork made up as the gothic Barbie, with lips done up so perfectly that they would make Angelina Jolie jealous. It's time for Tairrie to pick a view and stick with it. Angry girls all over the world screamed with her on "Beauty Fiend" from My Ruin's sophomore album - "I am not your pretty face, I'm just a girl - the girl you love to hate." It was great then, but the band's third disc does not bring the same comfort as their previous material. It's time for them to pack up the double standards and boring guitar riffs and go listen to Le Tigre.<BR...Stay away from this album. It is nothing but My Ruin trying to sell themselves to a new audience of thirteen-year-old girls who didn't get asked to their junior high dance. Two days after purchasing it, I took it to CD Warehouse in hopes that they would take it off of my hands. To my great disappointment, they didn't want it either. It figures.

My Ruin's latest release, "The Horror of Beauty," is an incredible album that surpasses the band's previous efforts. What makes this particular CD unique is its raw, guttural quality; I can best describe the sound as a slice of heavy metal shamelessly dipped in sludge and skinned to the bone. In addition, all of the tracks are delicately held together by the eerie aura of a Hollywood silent film.
As Mick Murphy's guitar strings quiver and throb, Meghan Mattox's bass stalks the fleeting silence. Tairrie B. relies on her bloodcurdling scream to assault audiences with her unapologetic lyrics. She chose this newest project to attack MTV and teen magazines, both of which present a disgustingly shallow ideal of physical perfection.
I am happy to say that this album has a generous slew of audio highlights. The instrumental "Stage Fright" is the record's ominous overture; it casts a blood-red spotlight onto the barren stage of an underground theatre, setting the tone for the drama that follows. Then, a jolt of adrenaline kicks in with the band's single "Made to Measure," a personal song that addresses the unbearable pressures for women to be trimmed and flawless. "American Psycho" emits a claustrophobic blackness; tortured by fits of anxiety, Tairrie seems to present herself as a killer of Hollywood "stars." "Spitfire" is a merciless release of fiery rage against My Ruin's former record label, which Tairrie felt had severely mismanaged business affairs. "Burn the Witch" is a slow, slithering track where Tairrie extends her middle finger towards all of the "perfect" girls; the ones who earn popularity with their looks instead of their intelligence. In the fast-paced "Nazimova," (dedicated to the film star of the same name) the shrieking frontwoman proudly declares herself as the vamp; a woman who refuses to compromise herself for the sake of impressing the mainstream crowd. In "Weightless," Miss B. angrily brings up the sensitive subject of her own weight; she is sickened by how society tolerates stereotypic images of women who are either "fat" or "thin." "Get Pretty" addresses the beauty issue with even more alarming detail. In this blistering track, Miss B. tackles the horrible fear of being "ugly." While tearing down America's wall of silicone and plastic, the band decrys the unfairness of how "pretty girls" are popular while "ugly girls" are rejected by society.
I can definitely confirm that "The Horror of Beauty" is gorgeous in its brutality. Buy it when you can. Plastic parts aren't included.

this cd is way to repetitive, and even though tairrie is screamin' her eyes out over heavy guitars, its just missing a whole lot of something...her screaming sounds way to forced, so that kinda ruins the experience
the first 2 albums are WAY better
best song: STINKFACE (very fast {ok} song)
worst song: WEIGHTLESS (o god!, its horrible)
if you want to check out my ruin, i suggest speak & destroy, then, a prayer under pressure of violent anguish...this cd isnt TOTALLY worth it

AND if you want another crappy cd by tairrie b., be sure to check out 'the power of a woman' by tairrie b....you'll be sure to be dissapointed!!!!...yay!

{if my ruin keeps releasing stuff like horror of beauty, then im sure theyll lose a bit 'o popularity with their fans, -thats how bad/good it is-}

I had never really heard the music of My Ruin, but I had heard of them through word of mouth. The Horror Of Beauty caught my eye one day while browsing in the music section of Circuit City, and I unashamedly picked up the album sheerly by "image" alone.
What I wasn't prepared for was the brutality in which each song was delivered. What pleased me though was how Tairrie B. took a full on assault on the cheese-fest that we're subjected to on a daily basis, via the media. Most of you may not enjoy the blood curdling screams, but once you get beyond the screaming and really get down to the bare bones of it, Tairrie is delivering a message of empowerment to those who are tired of the "cheese-fest", and to those who feel the need to live up the industry's idea of what is "beautiful". I praise Tairrie for putting it all on the table, and saying it outright. It's fantastic to see someone tackle the issue head on instead of beating around the bush.
I would encourage everyone to at least sit down, and truly listen to this album in its entirety, and listen to what Auntie Tairrie is saying and learn from it...

I take as my text the gospel of Horror Of Beauty by Tairrie B and My Ruin. Tairrie B has roared condemning songs against image-conscious mainstream hypocrites, Hollywood producers and Sports Illustrated-type models, as well as the dysfunctional problems with the church. The assault continues on The Horror Of Beauty, her first album on Century Media Records, and she has NOT, I repeate, NOT let up, as this is her heaviest album yet.

After a series of random noises, including heavy chugging Black Sabbath type riffs in "Stage Fright," the second song, "Made To Measure" kicks in with a sound rivalling Rob Zombie and racing Bruce Kulick-style guitar riffs from KISS's Asylum. If Hole did this on Pretty On The Inside... whew! The basic idea is that not everyone is the same, or made to measure like the SI broads and the magazine critics who encourage SI-type perfection. As she roars sagely, "You dont need to be sorry/you don't have to be saved/You just need to be proud of the body that God gave." And at the end, "NOW WHAT (X3) ? What you gonna say next time you SEE US?" A similar song is "Burn The Witch," where the witch is...you know, and Tairrie is their nemeses, her wand being her middle finger.

The opening "This is not an exit!" is taken from the sign the protagonist/murderer reads at the end of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, also the name of this song, and it's a song bewailing the conformist fashion and pop culture maven the main character was pressured to becoming to fit in: "I've become what I despise/Leaned into the light/now I'm crucified" and the horrific transformation: "The killer is inside of me-Don't try to take my life/I've burned all my hatchets-but I've sharpened my knives." I'll probably play this if I snap and decide to do a Charles Whitman or James Humberty.

"Spitfire" was My Ruin's old label, and her nuclear attacks on it for not promoting her properly are VERY personal: "I put my trust in you/and you betrayed me/Took what I gave you/and f----n r-ped me/But you can't kill me..." No, she's still alive, thank goodness!

On "Radio Silence," Tairrie takes on artists whose music are "Pro-user friendly/Teen pornographic (<-Britney?)/Superficial substance/Sick narcissistic/bulls--t by numbers/Gone crazy bizkit" and questions the use of charts to reflect stardom.

Heavier Danzig-riffs lash out in "Hot In The House Of God" while Tairrie rails against Hollywood for ruining the career of Russian silent film star and maverick Alla Nazimova, best known by her last name.

"Stinkface" is what she calls someone who's threatened by her unabashed candour. With motifs like Tears for Fears' "Shout," she says, "What was I thinking when I shut my mouth?/Open it wide...let the sh-- come out!"

"Weightless" condemns the fad of skinny waifish female singers or models making those who don't become invisible if they turn sideways unmarketable and faceless. She angrily tells them, "I will not apologize for scaring you.../you are everything thats wrong with America!"

A reaction to NME's claim that pretty girls make friends with fake smiles where as ugly girls make enemies is behind "Get Pretty." The blazing guitars nearly make Tairrie's angry as all out vocals. "Get pretty-silicon sold separately", huh? At the end, Tairrie begins to say "va..." and then yells out "c--t" Take that, NME!

And the cover song here is a churning heavy rendition of P.J. Harvey's "Rid Of Me" and she belts out the refrain beginning "Don't you wish you never, never, never," but she appears to sing "Lick my licks" instead of the original's "Lick my legs." This is a perfect song for Tairrie to sing.

Tairrie has far from abdicated her post as lioness/priestess of righteous anger and being proud of oneself without blindly pandering to the mainstream, and her voice is still the throaty roar is was on her earlier albums. And this is the gospel of Tairrie. Thanks be to Tairrie.

I baught this CD expecting something I shouldn't have. I baught 'A Prayer..' not too long ago and was somewhat impressed with it. Listening to the first song I could tell it was weak. The music is better, I'll admit that, but alot is lacking with the lyrics and Tairrie's voice. It sounds as if she showed up at the studio after an all night drinking binge, tired and weak. It also strikes me that she always has something to say about being made to look a certain way, being made to act a certain way. Yet, when you look at her she's a very pretty girl decked out in the average gothic look, the average overly done makeup, etc. Which brings up the question in my mind, what is she complaining about? I'd also like to note that I'm still baffled at why they would sample 'Beauty Fiend' at the end of 'Radio Silence'. I saw no point in it. All and all the lyrics are overly redundant, voice is extremely weak, and seems forced. I gave it 3 stars because of the over all improvement with the music. I'd say this is a CD to listen to if you're in one of those crappy moods.

This CD is overall not very good. The lyrics weren't written well and there is no originality, or emotion in the songs. I would not recommend this CD to anyone, and I advise everyone to not waste their money.

Well comparing this album to the last (which I thought was a disapointment), H.O.B. is better musically and Tairrie's voice sounds right on cue. But it lacks that special something that makes an album great, in my opinion. I still love My Ruin and the album is still worth buying, but don't expect to be blown away.

The Horror of Beauty is the third album from MY RUIN, and it definitely shows how much they have progressed as a band from earlier material. With a line up of four amazingly talented musicians, put together to make one of the tightest line-ups you'll find. This album is definitely not a let down, eagerly anticipated, it proves that MY RUIN have done it again and bought out a great album for their fans. The lyrics are still some of the best I've heard, and Tairrie never fails to write about serious and important topics to get her message across, and it works well with this album.
With tracks like "American Psycho", "Stinkface", and "Radio Silence" proving that this is definitely a metal album, there's no calling MY RUIN "nu metal" anymore.
Produced by MY RUIN's own Mick Murphy and he has done a great job of it. This is a MUST album for My Ruin fans or anyone getting into the band. My Ruin are unlike any other band you will find, and those who have disagreed should simply go back to listening to Avril.
It is a truly amazing album, and if you don't have it you are missing out!