Leading up to the release of RUIN: It’s Not Just Music, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith made a five-slide post on social media featuring some of the messages she wrote to herself while making the album. Most pertinent to listeners who have gotten too comfortable with her previous work were the final two: “This is not New Age” and “This is not ambient.” What RUIN is, is dance music. It’s got the elevated BPMs of drum ’n’ bass, the warped and soulful vocals of garage, and the genre pile-ons of hyperpop. “I Don’t Know What It Is” sprints through a jungle of growling predators and keyboard melody switch-ups, before honing in on the phrase, “I’ll take the weight off your shoulders.” On “It’s in Everything You Say,” Smith alternates between dreamy interludes and what she refers to as ”sonic combat.” But like the album title says, this is not just music. Smith’s mellower compositions have never been aural wallpaper and always had an experimental bent, but the focus usually seemed to be on inward exploration. During this psychologically unrelenting era we’re living through, many artists have decided to make music that acts as an escape, a salve, or a release. With RUIN, Smith has instead created fuel to keep fighting back.