I played my lucky number
You do as you please
If you keep looking for trouble
It’s gonna find you in your sleep
Ritual Howls tend to dwell in the liminal spaces between decay and beauty, but on Bad Idea, drawn from their latest album Ruin, they slip into something starker: the hush that settles when the world stops arguing with itself. The Detroit trio moves with the gravity of a late-hour confession, each measure stretched thin as if time itself were listening. The vocals unspool like a private admission left on a dead phone line, while the rhythm sits low and deliberate, guiding the track as though through ash and half-light.
The band combines a cinematic blend of twangy industrial-rock that could fuel a post-apocalyptic dance floor. A collaboration between Paul Bancell (vocals, guitar), Chris Samuels (synth, samples, drum machine), and Ben Saginaw (bass), Ritual Howls creates expansive arrangements sculpted with masterful production. Bad Idea is no exception.
The track starts off with hushed spoken word before dipping into a great gothic bassline and mysterious atmospheric guitar work. The tone feels sinister and menacing, a cross between Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy, with measured use of their dark theatricality. A faint dusting of Ritual Howls’ trademark industrialized spaghetti western tension cinches the mood, the kind that keeps the horizon taut and waiting.
The lyrics sketch a portrait of someone stumbling through regret, avoidance, and self-sabotage. They retreat from connection, blame themselves for vanishing without closure, and admit to fear that needs tending even as they destroy what they cultivate. Trouble follows their patterns, leaving the other person bewildered while they drift further into isolation and resignation.
The absinthe-tinged video deepens the spell with footage from Rizz of VOWWS, a visual element the band has folded into their live set.
“We then took that, edited it, changed the color, and processed it for the video,” the band explains. What unfurls is a drifting procession of slow-motion gestures and a dizzying nighttime drive, a moving tableau that leans into the track’s sway rather than illustrating it outright. It feels like watching a figure glide past the edges of their own life, held in breathless suspension.
Watch the video for “Bad Idea” below:
In the end, Bad Idea stands as a quiet storm: measured, patient, and steeped in that familiar Ritual Howls quality where dread and longing share the same dimly lit room, a fitting omen for the world Ruin promises to open.
Listen to Bad Idea below and order Ruin here.
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