As her first solo album released on her own label Errant Child, These Killing Times was always going to be a deeply personal work for guitarist and visual artist Emma Ruth Rundle. The question was what kind of personal statement would it be? Reconnecting with producer Sonny DiPerri, who helped make her 2021 album Engine of Hell, Rundle puts together a lush, intricately produced album that moves between the worlds of singer-songwriter, slowcore, and shoegaze, all while examining the abusive power dynamics that she finds herself subjected to.
“Powerless” is a bold opener, introducing you to the sounds of the album and her distinct, breathy vocal delivery. It acts as a kind of thesis statement for the themes of the rest of the album, the dichotomy of the powerful and powerless. The verses are quaint, backed by a looping piano melody, but the choruses are short bursts of aggressive shoegaze guitar, exemplifying that dichotomy further. “God’s Picture” is a switch-up, an acoustic cut where Rundle addresses God directly about the state of her surroundings. Its highlight is its passionately sung repeated chorus where Rundle pleads with God to use the power he possesses to make change. The twinkling piano buried in the mix over time is the cherry on top.
Fitting for its title, “Anvil” is a bass-heavy track similar in structure to the opening track. The grungy guitar on the chorus punches you as it comes in, and the beautifully sung bridge makes Rundle seem like an angel of some kind as she repeats lines about shining bright lights down over the subject. “Catherine Wheel” concludes the album’s first half, opening with a higher-pitched guitar than “Powerless” and “Anvil” have made us comfortable with. Rundle compares the world she lives in to the torture of a Catherine wheel, a medieval torture device from the Middle Ages. The distortion covering the guitar as Rundle questions how her surroundings can be real on the closing bridge buries the listener underneath and brings them into the chaos of Rundle’s perspective.
“Don’t Delay Heaven” delivers a lush acoustic soundscape as Rundle contemplates death and eternity. She warps her words so interestingly over beautiful and poignant guitar and piano melodies, making it the highlight of the album. “Enough” is the only disappointing track on the album, as even though its lyrical content dealing with the greed and abuse men so often deal towards women is quite powerful, it is the least instrumentally interesting of the album’s eight tracks. Its higher-pitched guitar bridge reminiscent of the opening of “Catherine Wheel” is pleasant, and its noisy bridge near the end is interesting, but they’re not enough to make the song stand out in a short but stacked track list.
“Human Kindness” is the album’s centerpiece, an 8.5-minute slowcore song where Rundle continues her warped vocal delivery, singing about being “full of the milk of human kindness,” a visceral image. Its guitars are distinctly heavier than what we’ve heard before, and they devolve into something messier as the gigantic song takes you on its journey. The album’s closer, “Oceans of Time,” is its shortest song. Rundle’s lead vocal is layered on top of a quiet male voice and even quieter female voices, making for a meditative and soothing end to a heavy album. It finishes sounding like the album has brought the listener deep inside a cave and left them there to survive, mirroring the way Rundle sees the subjugation that surrounds her.
These Killing Times doesn’t pull any punches. It confronts the listener with Rundle’s pessimistic mindset, backed by layered production and guitars that get heavier as the album progresses. It’s a great display of her artistic versatility, and an even better personal statement on where she stands in the world. She chooses to confront the evils she’s observed, an admirable task that not many listeners can say they are brave enough to take on. It makes for a gripping listening experience and a great album.
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