Emma Ruth Rundle - These Killing Times

Emma Ruth Rundle’s album These Killing Times is electrifying, emotional, and charged with anti-patriarchal feminist rage. The sixth studio album by the multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and multidisciplinary artist is a reactive anthology, brimming with life and resistance; it asks us to question our intentions and the roles we play in the communities in which we live, and how we choose to fight the suffocating grip of capitalism.

Sleepless nights, moments of horror, and periods of fear could be mapped onto a timeline of recent sociopolitical events to trace the making of These Killing Times: the rising power of Christian nationalism, the grotesque circus of political discourse, and the accompanying sense of ontological unease. But there is also love—as balm and tonic, a means of escape. The desire for companionship and connection, while confronting the most violent sides of humanity, remains an unresolved tension.

Written while watching from afar the devastating aftermath of yet another climate disaster in early 2025, Emma reflected on the roots of the systemic problems that directly contribute to so many catastrophic global events, and consciously chose to make a hopeful album. Where external forces tempted her to turn inward, toward isolation and hopelessness, she instead turned her attention outward, creating an album that acknowledges pain while offering community and resilience as a response to it.