Alex Bacey - Ominous Ruin 'Cali Death Influenced Our Formidable Years'

Bay Area tech death band Ominous Ruin caught our attention with their latest album Requiem (our review here). We caught up with guitarist/producer Alex Bacey at home in California to ask about their influences, new vocalist Crystal Rose, the songwriting process and how they got their own coffee and beer brands...

Welcome to Wall of Sound in Australia. For those who might not be familiar with your body of work, introduce yourself. How did Ominous Ruin reach this point?‍

We are Ominous Ruin, Death Metal band from the Bay Area, California! We have two full length albums now after our recent release, Requiem, which came out on May 9th. We also have an EP from 2016. It's definitely been a journey up to this point.

We've had a few lineup changes including the recent addition of Crystal as our vocalist, which is her first ever project! We're really excited for what's to come and hope to see you on the road soon!  

‍Requiem is an incredibly technical album but without showing off or descending into chaos. What did the songwriting sessions look like? How does the band pull the songs together with such proficiency?

‍Thanks! Showing off is definitely not our intention, instead, we feel that we use instrument proficiency to express emotion and allow us to just be more creative/out of the box. Generally, songwriting sessions start with our guitar player, Alex, structuring songs in either pro tools or guitar pro and adding some preliminary drum tracks. Those files get sent to everyone else to approve or make comments/changes. In general, we do spend a lot of time making sure everything flows well, so there can be a good amount of back and forth edits and ideas.

We highly encourage everyone to read the lyrics off our albums as well, as we feel that not only is Crystal's voice an amazing instrument, the lyrics add a whole other layer!

Ominous Ruin fit in the tech death metal space but definitely have a unique flavour. Which bands and records inspired you down this musical path? Are there influences that might be less obvious? 

We definitely draw inspiration from many other genres, and actually don't listen to a whole lot of Tech Death in our free time. I think Tech Death and what we consider "Cali Death" influenced us in our more formidable years, bands like Severed Savior, Odious Mortem, Decrepit Birth, Deeds of Flesh, Origin, Spawn of Possession, and of course, Necrophagist. But these days, we all tend to listen to different things.

I tend to listen to more thrash, nu metal, 80s, synthwave and electronic, old school and bay area rap. We all mix it up pretty well these days, still trying to keep up with the metal scene but it's tough because of the sheer volume of music that comes out that isn't always quality or unique. 

I don’t doubt your live sets will feature a bunch of tunes off Requiem. What songs are you looking forward to playing? Which ones do you sense will stand the test of time and be part of future tours too? 

Oh man, we're really excited to play ‘Eternal’, ‘Staring into the Abysm’ and ‘Architect of Undoing’. We're also really looking forward to hearing Crystal perform some of our older material and put her spin on it! Shout us out on Instagram with what songs you want to hear!

How familiar are you with the Australian scene? We want to see you play over here, so which bands would make good touring buddies for Ominous Ruin?

We would love to make it to Australia! We get snippets here and there, but surely there's some super sick bands that don't get enough attention in the Americas. To name a few, The Ritual Aura, Psycroptic, Ne Obliviscaris, Be'lAkor, Thy Art is Murder, and if it counts Ulcerate, Blindfolded and Led to the Woods.  

As far as touring, we'd be happy to tour with anyone if it makes sense, open to any and all suggestions! 

How did you get into coffee and beer? They seem to be the side hustle of choice for lots of metal bands. How do you take your coffee? What’s your beer of choice?

Who doesn't love the brewed liquids of the gods? Haha, probably only sociopaths! Aside from just tasting great, Coffee and Beer are great for connecting not just metalheads, but humans in general. Creating great conversations and good times, so much so that some genius decided to brew coffee in beer, haha! We love a good medium and light roast, that's why we chose the beans we did, cold brew is great, and a good latte is hard to pass up! 

For the beer, we went with a lager, easier to drink, 5%, and Alpha Acid brews incredible beers no matter what type. Depending on the mood, we normally drink easy crushers and won't go heavy super often, but really love all types of beer! As long as it's brewed well and fresh at least haha.

What’s in store for Ominous Ruin for the rest of 2025?

We're lining up some live shows as we speak! It's been tough for us because we all work full-time jobs, managing a project now is also a full-time job haha, we're not in this to be influencers!! We're a damn metal band haha! A lot of bands are booking so far out these days but we want to get this show on the road. We also haven't stopped with new music, with plenty of new material in the works! Until then, all of our stuff can be found at our linktr.ee including tour dates when we have them.

Cheers and we hope to get to AU and NZ ASAP!!

There you have it. Ominous Ruin wants to come visit so check out Requiem here and follow the band on socials.

Ominous Ruin on Facebook | Instagram

Interview by KJ Draven @kjdraven

Ominous Ruin - Requiem tracklisting

1 Intro
2. Seeds of Entropy
3. Eternal
4. Bane of Syzygial Triality
5. Divergent Anomaly
6. Fractal Abhorrence
7. Architect of Undoing
8. Staring into the Abysm
9. Requiem