It may have taken Taint ten years to release a full-length album, but every second of The Ruin of Nova Roma is worth the wait. Holy shit, these guys are good. It�s tough to pinpoint the band�s sound. Aggro metal, for sure, but from there it gets tougher to define. You�ve got songs which have the hell-bent biker metal sound of a band like Entombed, but with the more abrasive bite of a Converge-like outfit. The title track starts off sparsely and gradually builds to an uplifting peak, maintaining an intense level of heavy. �The Idol/The Memory,� my favorite of the ten songs, is based on a rolling bass line that steamrolls into a crushing riff. It�s a direct song, but there�s a fair amount of complexity underneath it. �Amaranthine� is a slow burning, almost doom-ish song that features some haunting vocals by a female guest singer. And the final song, �Cours et Conquistadors,� has an almost straightforward rock beat to it.

Best of all, this variety ties together perfectly. Throughout all ten songs, it�s unmistakably the work of one band, a band that�s damn talented. The Ruin of Nova Roma needs to be heard. Awesome, awesome stuff.

The opener immediately lets you know what Taint are all about. You get deeply tuned guitars, fierce vocals and a bombastic rhythm section that starts in a brutal way before turning into something sludgier and even slightly doomish. And that's exactly the recipe for success behind Taint. Stoners will like "Zealots & Whores" and "He Got Cop Eyes" which show parallels to Monster Magnet. Rockers will be satisfied with "Drunken Marksman" and "I'm Going to Kill Henry Ford". And the doom faction is not neglected on "Amaranthine", the slowest track on the album. The Ruin of Nova Roma has the potential to become a classic, even if only in the underground. Taint is a band worth following.

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