Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	80/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Clash	(9/10)
Consequence of Sound	(B)
Drowned in Sound	(8/10)
The Line of Best Fit	(9/10)
musicOMH
Pitchfork Media	(8.8/10)
Tiny Mix Tapes

Ruins is the 10th studio album by ambient musician Grouper, released in the U.S. on October 31, 2014, on Kranky.

Upon its release, Ruins received critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album holds an average score of 80, indicating "generally favorable reviews", based on 19 reviews. Philip Sherburne of Pitchfork Media gave the album 8.8/10, and awarded it the site's 'Best New Music' title. The tracks "Call Across Rooms" and "Holding" were also awarded Pitchfork's 'Best New Track' status. and named it the 5th best album of 2014.

While Liz Harris was staying in Portugal at Sérgio Hydalgo’s aunt's house, she was listening to records by Carlos Paredes, Nina Simone and Leonard Cohen.

Harris described the recording of the album in a statement:

The "microwave beep" occurs at the end of "Labyrinth".

For "Call Across Rooms", Harris stated that "the song is on one level very plain and literal, about a letter I wrote for someone I loved and could not get along with. On a more subconscious, poetic level, it is a letter to myself, as aspiration to love better."

All music composed by Liz Harris.

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