Local Doom Lords ‘Runtuh’ Are As Precise As They Are Putrid

By Lara Kramer  •  in Features
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Photo via @bandsatwork on Instagram

If you’ve caught Runtuh live, you know.

You know that moment when the first chord hits and it feels less like sound and more like the floor just dropped five inches under your boots. You know the way the noise seems to swell and fold around itself, choking out any stray thought you had left in your skull. And you know that weird feeling halfway through their set where you can’t decide if you’re terrified, grateful, or just plain ruined.

For a band that’s only been around since 2021, Runtuh play like they’ve been burning out amps and lung tissue since the mid-nineties. Watching them live is that rare thing where you realise you’re in the presence of something properly dialled in.

Arguably one of the toughest acts to follow, these guys aren’t just loud, not just heavy, but studied, deliberate, disgustingly tight in a way that feels unfair to anyone who has to share the bill with them.

Formed in Kuala Lumpur, Runtuh build their sound on the bones of funeral doom, sludge, and drone. It’s the sort of music that doesn’t just flirt with ugliness, it marries it, raises a family, and moves them all into a burnt-out factory by the Klang river.

Critics and fans often liken their sound to Primitive Man’s sheer nihilism, Khanate’s torturous pacing, a splash of Indian’s gritty spite, but shot through with Runtuh’s own brand of disgust and honesty.

It’s not pretty and it isn’t meant to be. The guitars buzz and crackle like high-voltage lines on a rainy night. Drums pound at half the speed your heart wishes they would, and the vocals come out as a throatful of iron filings. But under all that filth, there’s structure, precision, an almost clinical sense of timing that keeps the whole mess from collapsing under its own weight.

Filthy, focused, and completely unf*ckwithable.

Their latest record, Ambiguous Man, is a perfect example of that balance. Six tracks of deliberate abrasion, each one chewing at the soft tissue of hypocrisy, self-deception, and every other dirty secret we like to keep hidden behind polite smiles. It’s borderline rotten, sure, but there’s something honest about it. No melodrama, no grandstanding, just a slow, relentless peel back of humanity’s prettiest lies.

‘Manure’, the first single, is the entry wound. Live, it feels like a surgical procedure done without anaesthetic. Tribal drum patterns grind underneath blackened riffs that sound like steel beams bending under heat. Feedback squeals in your teeth. And somehow, despite the sheer sonic wreckage, the whole thing lands right on time, every time.

Like they’ve been doing this since dial-up internet

You can’t fake this kind of cohesion. Wak and Hafiz on guitars trade off textures and layers like they’re finishing each other’s ugly thoughts. Trishay’s drumming doesn’t just keep time, it drags the whole band backwards through wet cement, while his vocals tear holes in the top end. It’s not just that they’re tight. It’s that they know exactly how to make the looseness feel rehearsed, the chaos feel choreographed. That’s the part that really messes with your head.

Live, they pull off this sleight of hand where the music sounds completely unhinged, but the band never looks lost. The feedback hangs for just the right number of heartbeats before they drag you back under. It’s the musical equivalent of someone leaning in to whisper something filthy and then smirking because they know you wanted to hear it.

They’ve taken this monster to Singapore, Indonesia, and Japan, stomping through venues that probably still smell like burnt cables weeks later. And it translates. The sheer weight of it, the deliberate pacing, the refusal to soften a single edge. It doesn’t matter where you stand on the map. Runtuh’s music hits the same ugly nerve in all of us.

And there’s something deeply refreshing about that. In a scene where “heavy” sometimes gets polished until it sparkles, Runtuh stay stubbornly, gloriously raw. It isn’t about showing off how low they can tune or how slow they can play. It’s about making every note feel lived in, bruised, and rusted.

Photos via @booyaka_ on Instagram

No heroes here, just ruin

Maybe that’s why it works so well. Runtuh don’t posture. They don’t mythologise themselves as tortured prophets. They just stand there, drown everything in fuzz, and let the sound do the talking. And what it says isn’t poetic; it’s raw, sardonic, disgusted but never dishonest.

It’s music that sounds like the city around them… Choked by smog, propped up by contradictions, still somehow alive. Professional in the scariest sense of the word. Polished not in sheen, but in intent.

And when it’s over, you’re left in a room that feels smaller than when you walked in. You blink, check your hearing, and realise there’s no other band around here doing it quite like this. And maybe, just maybe, that’s the most comforting thought you’ve had all week.

You heard it here first. Check Runtuh out now.

Psst – you can also catch Runtuh live on 15 August at Ladyboss Ipoh alongside our other favs like Ibliss and Wormrot!

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