The initial attraction of post-rock to most people, I believe, is the sheer vastness of the sound. Those dabbling will look for the “epic.” Tucson post-rockers North identify this feature, and attempt to blow everything out of sky with distortion and crash cymbals taking the tried-and-true soft-loud dynamic of hundreds of other bands of similar styles a little bit further. It would be difficult to accuse North of ineptitude in this regard. They certainly prove that their more metal oriented side would shake the earth in a live context (in which this release was recorded) and approach the post-rock style with competence and a crafty understanding of how to wield bass and guitar distortion convincingly. However, with the brevity of the songs, and the ever-increasing number of bands producing utterly banal, derivative versions of a post-rock style, North sounds like a digested version of the elements of post-rock that have been known and loved for the past five years.

Echoes of most of the godfathers of the most recent wave of post-rock are extremely clear, particularly the often cited Explosions In The Sky. This on its own is not a particularly valid critique to single-handedly level a band, but for a good portion of Ruins, North fails to present tracks that offer anything more than empty post-rock gimmicks, with a bit of added distortion and a metal attitude. With the majority of the work clocking in under or around five minutes in length, there is little room for the music to breathe, and with such a vast sound employed, this is, frankly, necessary to provide an engaging experience.

Understandably, North seeks to break away from the bloated structure that has become commonplace in the genre, as well as presenting a sound on as large a scale as possible. This  "swift yet utterly gutting" approach is quite novel, obviously advocated by contemporaries such as Caspian and This Will Destroy You. However, North seem uncommitted to providing ideas with any chance of progression, simply presenting common post-rock musical ideas with additional reverb and distortion. The approach becomes tiring, with each track in similar tempo, utilizing the same sounds, the same feels, all the time wearing the same influences on their sleeves.

It's not surprising that the stronger tracks on the effort are the lengthier ones where North is less restricted by temporal considerations. The title track and “Ash” showcase a side to the band's approach that is far more convincing; here buildups reach full maturity and climaxes progress without awkward truncation. With more progressive contrasts in tone color and dynamic intensity, these tracks show Ruins to be on the borderline of ordinariness and excellence. While the derivativeness extends to these moments of the EP as well, this is more easily excused in the light of more structural variety and the commitment to the most crushing and massive guitar and bass sounds. This can be seen most obviously in the transition from the more lackluster sounds of the end of “Nex In March”  to the contrasting explosions of the opening to “Ash.”

Many listeners will love Ruins and the familiarity with which it brings. However, North is far too derivative, far too banal in its approach to post-rock to totally convince me as a listener. They present a sizable sound, a commendably uncompromising approach to an already intense style, but fail at showing themselves to be very close to producing a remarkable style. Ruins is a study of the most epic post-rock, coming across as competent, but rife with the unoriginal, and occasionally the trite. North have impressed a lot of listeners with such a crushingly vast sound, but need to be more mindful of how predictable theirs and others’ approach to post-rock is becoming. A band needs more than distortion and reverb to be truly convincing.

- Marcus Whale