Emma Ruth Rundle Plugs Back In on These Killing Times

Emma Ruth Rundle has never needed a band to sound heavy. On 2014’s Some Heavy Ocean and the Marked for Death era, a single guitar carried enough weight to knock a listener flat. But after a five-year stretch of stark, largely solo work — Engine of Hell, the experimental EG2: Dowsing Voice, and the piano-driven Music from the Bella Vista — Rundle plugs in again on These Killing Times, her fifth solo album.

The eight songs bring in collaborators without losing her signature directness. Nick Reinhart of Tera Melos, Chelsea Wolfe drummer Jess Gowrie, and Cinder Well’s Amelia Baker help widen the sound, but the force comes from Rundle’s writing. Opener “Powerless” starts quiet, almost like a bridge back to Engine of Hell, then erupts — frustration aimed at hopelessness, with a lyric about holding a hammer to smash and to build.

Elsewhere, Baroness guitarist Gina Gleason adds a spiraling surge to “Catherine Wheel,” and Patrick Shiroishi’s saxophone cuts through the dense arrangement of “Enough,” one of the album’s sharpest political turns. These Killing Times lands as a response to a moment of collapse, moving between rage and the kind of grace Rundle has long been able to hold in the same breath.