Emma Ruth Rundle’s new album, These Killing Times, arrives via her own Errant Child imprint, and it finds her returning with perhaps her most direct and powerful record yet. Opening with haunting piano before Emma’s unmistakable voice quickly follows on “Powerless” it’s a strong introduction that only becomes more powerful as the song develops sending shivers down your spine with its sheer power and beauty. Heavy choruses envelop you, leaving a lasting dent in the heart. Beautifully heavy but still carrying those folk influences that have always been part of her sound, it sets the tone for a record that feels both deeply personal and charged with something much bigger.
The recently released single “Gods Picture” carries all the trademarks of a classic Emma Ruth Rundle track, with moody guitars and sparse strings and piano creating the space for her voice to take centre stage it’s a truely beautiful track taking you to a world you just want to immerse yourself fully in. There’s also something more urgent on this album than on some of her previous work. Emma has returned to a full band setup, giving the album a much fuller and more immediate sound, while her vocals feel more direct than ever especially notable on “Catherine Wheel” with its explosive guitars and haunting vocals making for one of the albums highlights.
She’s joined by an impressive collection of collaborators, including drummer Jess Gowrie of Chelsea Wolfe and Mrs. Piss, longtime collaborator Troy Zeigler, Patrick Shiroishi, Nick Reinhart of Tera Melos, Gina Gleason of Baroness, Marissa Nadler, Lukas Frank of Storefront Church and Amelia Baker of Cinder Well. Rather than feeling overcrowded, the contributions add colour and weight to Emma’s songwriting, with the brighter and more urgent instrumentation giving the album a fascinating energy like in “Enough” with its mad saxophone work creating a giant wall of noise against the beauty of Rundles songwriting.
At its heart, These Killing Times is a record about resistance. It carries a very clear anti-patriarchal and feminist anger, while also questioning the roles we play within our communities and how we respond to the systems surrounding us. The album feels shaped by the anxieties of the world we’re currently living in but this isn’t simply an album of anger and despair. Love runs through it too, offering companionship, connection and escape from the uglier parts of humanity. That tension between the horror of the world and our need to find something beautiful within it is what makes the record so compelling.
Sure, it’s slow and depressing in places but that’s essentially what Emma Ruth Rundle does best. She has always understood how to sit comfortably between hope and despair, and These Killing Times takes that idea and gives it a sharper, more confrontational edge. Every song feels like it could soundtrack the end of the world, but there’s still enough life, love and resistance here to suggest that perhaps the story isn’t over yet.
These Killing Times is electrifying, emotional and unafraid to confront the world around it. It feels like an important new chapter for Emma Ruth Rundle, and one that deserves to be embraced with open arms.