I've put off writing about Unlock the Shrine for a long time. In part, it's because I've grown so close to the album as a listener that it's difficult to interpret it on a critical level anymore. What's more, such an atmosphere-based piece of art is all-the-more difficult to articulate into words. The magic The Ruins of Beverast generated with this debut cannot all have been intentional; atmosphere is born from a collusion of multiple clandestine words. This is intellectual art, but it is felt more than it is thought about.

Unlock the Shrine ranks among the very few albums I've ever heard that sound like they were partially drawn from another dimension. It is pure, unbridled psychosis expressed as sound, and no number of repeated listens can really serve to distinguish the music from its extraterrestrial aura. I hold Alexander von Meilenwald's The Ruins of Beverast as the artistic pinnacle of all black metal, arguably rivaled only by Deathspell Omega. Unlike DSO however, I'm not sure I could directly articulate why I feel so strongly about it. Even moreso than Beverast's following masterworks, Unlock the Shrine hinges on the subjectivity of its atmosphere. Like an expedition into the dark sub-conscious of a Romantic-era composer, or a trip back ton alternate, hellish version of the Middle Ages. With this debut, Meilenwald immediately established himself as the most visionary conjurer of atmosphere; with an equally firm grasp of composition to boot, Unlock the Shrine is matched only by a handful of other black metal albums; a few of which being the albums Alexander would make after this.

If there's one thing that might set The Ruins of Beverast apart from any other band, it's that I might call any one of their albums my personal favourite; the choice is merely dependent on the time of day and mood I'm in at the given time. Rain Upon the Impure may be the most ambitious of the four to date, but I don't know if I would ever have learned to appreciate it fully without the demanding presence of Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite. While it's probably safe to say 2013's Blood Vaults is the least incredible of the four to date, it still managed to be one of my favourite records from that year, and there are still times when I'll swear by it as a bonafide masterpiece. With the release of Unlock the Shrine, Alexander von Meilenwald had no such precedent; Nagelfar may have earned their place amongst the black metal elite, but a solo project is a fresh slate, and a very different kind of game.

As for Unlock the Shrine, it's the kind of album that could not have come about as a collaborative effort. To varying degrees, all atmospheric black metal is intended to lull the listener into a sense of introspection, but Unlock the Shrine is unique in the sense that it seems to draw you into someone else's head. It's the sound of a demented psyche falling apart at the seams, and The Ruins of Beverast don't get that impression across by drawing within the lines. The eerie downtuned guitars, the reverberating vocals, the creepy choice of voice samples, the murky, lurid production; all of these sound imperfect and ugly, and I think another person with sway in the result would have tempered them to sound more conventional. The Ruins of Beverast's Medieval-tinged, ambient-heavy subset wasn't necessarily using ingredients a world removed from what had already been explored by forward-thinking atmospherists like Blut Aus Nord or even Summoning, but the sharp-edged, counter-intuitive manner in which von Meilenwald combines them gives the music a sense of Otherness that could not come into being through good intentions alone.

The atmosphere and execution, for all its ugliness, is absolutely perfect on a subjective level. Like most music in this style, the performance is kept distorted and murky, but the production knows just enough clarity to leave to let Alexander's brilliantly eerie melodies shine through. Melody is the unlikeliest thing for Unlock the Shrine to have succeeded in, and it's perhaps the fact that melody sounds so alien in this doomy ambient setting that they sound so vital. "Between Bronze Walls" actually stands as one of the finest compositions I have ever heard in black metal, and it's in large part due to the strokes of genius with which Meilenwald is able to implement his melodies. Accompanied by an anxiety-ridden sample (taken from the film The Believers, written by then-future Twin Peaks co-writer Mark Snow) the melody Meilenwald chooses to lead his debut's overture is far from pretty, but it's memorable; it slithers itself into your mind and stays there. Even the ambient interludes here (of which there are plenty) offer up chilling earworms to keep the listener under the spell. Though an even ration for song-to-interlude is generally grating, von Meilenwald makes these ambient snippets into self-contained doses of psychedelic horror. The only other black metal musician I can think of that nails this sort of 'psychotic dark ambient' as well is Leviathan's Jef Whitehead, whose own doom-centric project Lurker of Chalice would probably make for the closest analogue to Beverast's own sound at this early stage in the band's development.

If "Between Bronze Walls" is the best thing this album has to offer, then "The Clockhand's Groaning Circles" isn't far behind. Again, this is an example of the kind of horrors made possible by pairing meticulous songwriting with ravenous atmosphere. Meilenwald includes a subtle stroke of brilliance here in the song's intro; keep an ear fixed for the tempo, and you may find it lines up perfectly with a 'groaning clockhand'. "Summer Decaptitation Ritual" showcases the album's most surprising moment, where a vocal sample of Medieval flagellants segues into a jaunty keyboard bit right out of the Summoning handbook. "Euphoria When the Bombs Fell" blends sacred choirs with profane dissonance, and revels in the conflict between the two. The final twenty minutes of the album could almost be seen as a single, gradually building entity, though neither "Unlock the Shrine" nor "The mine" offer anything in the way of catharsis or escape from the album's mental turmoil. Unlock the Shrine is one of the most imperfect masterpieces I have ever heard, but that's not at all to suggest it is in any way flawed. The malevolent awkwardnesses here aren't entirely controlled (and wouldn't have come to pass any other way) but it's readily evident that they've been meticulously pushed by a rare genius of this art form.

After serving a lengthy amount of time in prominent German black metal band Nagelfar, Alexander von Meilenwald chose to embark on a towering vision with himself being the sole band member. Although a demo was previously unleashed into the deep web of underground black metal, this is the first prominent Ruins of Beverast release as well as the first one to be fully realized. Unlock the Shrine is mired under a deep shroud of undying darkness, unnerving disorientation and damp atmosphere. It twists and turns down the bleak corridors of the darkest corners of the mind, digging deep and indeed requiring an ample amount of time to be properly digested. Being equally appropriate for a nighttime hike in the wilderness or a leisurely stroll through a crack-infested urban slum, this offering encompasses aural ugliness and terror while still leaving sufficient room to allow the atmosphere to breathe and properly sink in.

This album maintains relatively lo-fi and unpolished recording values, while at the same time not coming off as all that inaccessible. Although darker than a basement prison cell, there is not a moment that is obfuscated under layers of hissing distortion. Subscribing to a prominent doomy approach, this is generally slow or mid-paced; however, that isn't to say that faster sections don't break out from the lumbering mass on a semi-regular occasion. The inclusion of doom-oriented passages certainly adds to this album's unique atmosphere. This recording feels dark and damp throughout, while oscillating between a cerebral and visceral approach. This atmosphere is littered with dark ambience, samples – both of spoken word and of assorted sounds and bizarre tones.

While this features no shortage of cold, unhinged distortion, melody often creeps its way into the mix. These melodies are expertly crafted and provide a glimmer of light in the overwhelming darkness. While many albums will have a main attraction – be that riffs, melody, songwriting or vocal performance, the success of Unlock the Shrine lies within the culmination of varied dynamics and individual parts allowing for a truly memorable whole. This is more than the sum of its parts – everything compliments what it is playing along with or next to. There isn't one thing that overshadows the next thing, the convergence of many different aspects allow for the finished work to be so monolithic and powerful.

The keyboards and samples are used a lot more actively than in your average black metal band, creating an atmosphere while also not being a background affair. The keyboard is not just lingering ambient drones – they play prominent melodies that often emit a militaristic vibe. The guitar often is a barrage of grainy tremolo, although does slow down into crushing (although vaguely melodic) doom passages. The man does know how to contort a musical idea through various stages of life. For example, there's a carnivalesque keyboard melody in “Summer Decapitation Ritual” that soon morphs into a repeating truly epic riff (that includes the keyboard still playing a slightly altered version of it). This later comes back in a black metal section in the form of raging-yet-melodic tremolo. The vocals are a somewhat reserved snarly rasp, which are executed well. Although definitely holding a certain amount of bite, they never go into a full fledged assault, allowing his wondrous instrumentation to take centre stage. His drum work is very successful, knowing when to hold back as well as when to blast into a bombastic fury.

The one criticism that this album does tend to draw is the amount of interludes it has. Every black metal opus is followed by a shorter atmospheric piece. To be honest, the amount of ambient present in black metal (especially the amount that is completely average) can wear tiring. Ambient certainly works well in black metal, however, the amount of saturation has grown a bit high, with many bands seeming to sprinkle it on as an afterthought. These interludes are not token ambient filler. They are an integral part of the release's structure, allowing it time to breathe as well as adding to the creepy and unnerving nature of this beast. “Procession of Pawns” feels like an unknown hostile being slowly creeping towards you, hidden by the shadows. The watery dark psychedelic guitar tone in “God Sent No Sign” works perfectly alongside the off-kilter melodies. “Subterranean Homicide Lamentation” lurches forward in a state of militaristic menace. The only miniscule gripe that should be brought forward is that he probably could have found more powerful gunshot samples for “White Abyss”. These are not simple filler or constructed solely for a more atmospheric break from the more extreme material; the album would not be complete without them.

This recording is truly a monolithic and complex entity. It includes countless twists and turns that all go somewhere viable instead of spastically twisting off into an ocean of overcomplicated pointlessness. Everything here reaches towards a greater purpose. This release is an absolute beast, a manifestation of terror and unbridled hideousness. Although small rays of light do occasionally present themselves, this is no walk in the park. This does take some time to sink in; the journey that unfolds is worth every second of your patience.

Alexander von Meilenwald is an awesome musician, and the German black metal scene was definitely crippled when he and Zorn split Nagelfar. However, Alex thankfully continued his musical career with his own solo project The Ruins of Beverast. This new project is a far cry from Nagelfar's heathenism themes though. He seems to be more interested in darker themed music this time around as evidenced in this project's debut release Unlock the Shrine. The good news is that Alex can still make his music shine on his own. The bad news is that this debut as a whole has a real hard time shining and that the music really isn't as strong as it could have been.

The music played here actually jumps around several styles while maintaining a dark tone. There's characteristics of depressive black metal here, especially in "Between Bronze Walls" and "The Clockhand's Groaning Circles". There's also a sort of really fast and raw approach on "Euphoria When Bombs Fell" and "Summer Decapitation Ritual"; these songs are really chaotic and remind me of Gnaw Their Tongues' material that leans more toward black metal with even more black metal influence thrown in. The album produced from this mix is an intriguing one that really shines in some places, but is also rather dim in others.

My biggest gripe with this album is the excess of interludes. There's one after every song on this album; and while some of them sound interesting like the creepy "Skeleton Coast" and the outro piece "White Abyss", their overall presence does very little for this album. If they weren't there, the album would be a good 14 and a half minutes shorter (and that's even if "White Abyss" was kept as an outro). With them in there, this album is a daunting 70 minutes, so taking away the interludes would actually be beneficial. None of the interludes actually sound bad, they're just really unnecessary.

As for the actual songs, the quality varies. "Between Bronze Walls" is a slower paced piece, but it's varied enough with its riffs during its eight minute course to keep things interesting. The other slower piece is "The Clockhand's Groaning Circles" which is much weaker with less interesting riffs included. Same deal with the two songs following the faster more chaotic pattern, "Euphoria When Bombs Fell" and "Summer Decapitation Ritual". "Euphoria..." is a rather average piece with not a lot of standout moments; on the other hand, "Summer Decapitation Ritual" is really, really impressive with the whirlwind of riffs more memorable and the catchy break in the middle to keep things interesting. The remaining two pieces, the title track and "The Mine", are definitely good enough to place the album in the above average scoring range with "The Mine" being the ideal piece to end the album with its memorable chanting at the end fading into "White Abyss".

This album is good, but it's not great. It feels bloated with almost 15 minutes that could have been put to better use (and will be in The Ruins of Beverast's subsequent albums). There's a few winners among the songs, but the closest thing to a loser would be "The Clockhand's Groaning Circles" with its boring riffs that drag out for too long. Unlock the Shrine is still worth checking out for the winner songs though, especially "Summer Decapitation Ritual". Alexander von Meilenwald will prove his musical genius to a much better degree in the next two albums though; that's where his essential material is.

I think the problem with a lot of modern black metal is that it doesn't make you feel anything. It can be full of all the screams, blastbeats and tremelos you can imagine, and while being a fun bit of entertainment, never really conspires to become anything more. On the other hand, you get artists like Xasthur who try so desperately to capture that fragile black metal essence that was once so alive in the early 90s, but ultimately end up sounding like mediocre slightly boring fuzz.

All this waffling does serve a purpose however, because presented within this album is something quite astounding; some of the most convincingly evil-sounding black metal I've ever heard, which also to some extent progressive as well (I know, what?!). Everything about this release reeks of macabre, grandiose evil, but doesn't resort to any over-the-top "RAAAARGH LOOK AT US WE'RE REALLY FUCKING DARK AND UNHOLY" black metal clichés.

The guitar tone is the most beautifully dark thing ever, it literally drips with venom, it has somewhat of a "buzzsaw" quality yet is nowhere near the mess of static and fuzz that certain bands (ahem... Black Funeral) resort to, it is very much clear and discernable,and has a kind of droning metallic quality which drapes the whole album in this archaic cloak of antiquity, like its the soundtrack to something happening in the 19th century. To understand what I mean listen to the riff which begins at around 1:00 in "The Clockhand's Groaning Circles". It sounds deathly, chilling, old, and full of intent and atmosphere, but saying this still gets me no closer to conveying the sheer engulfing mood contained within. It seems a bit of a cop-out to say its indescribable, but it is something so delicate and fragile, that pure essence of evil which attracted me to black metal.

Saying that however, that is not the entirity of the attractions of this album. What makes this so incredibly sublime is the way von Meilenwald has not only captured that sound so well and with seemingly so little effort, but has taken that base and built upon it, creating something truly special. Long winding song structures, with all sorts of awesome stuff like choirs and medieval horns, make this rewarding, engrossing, good music with a killer atmosphere, rather than just atmosphere for atmosphere's sake and nothing really musically engaging as Xasthur creates. I think it is rare that any popular music transcends being mere entertainment and becomes something more, but some moments on this disc seems to perfect to be labelled as such. I hesitate to call it art, (especially coming from the ludicrous genre of black metal) but some songs on here are absouletly perfect, and I would be unwilling to change them in any way. Namely: "Euphoria when the Bombs Fell", and "The Clockhand's Groaning Circles", both of these songs contain the aforementioned dark and archaic atmosphere in bucketloads. The former is a ferocious whirlwind of intense drumming, accompanying this evil as shit riff. The lyrics deal with what I can assume to be someone being bombed during a war. However, the riff of this song always makes me think of the buzzing of the engines of the bomber plane, and there is a fantastic break in the song with a choir singing, and this always brings to mind images of people in church about to be bombed, completely unaware of their fate, nameless, faceless casualities of a forgotten conflict. The effect is nothing short of absolutely profound.
The latter song is the second longest on the album, clocking in at around 10 minutes, and is a slower beast with some doom influences, and while I shan't go into the same detail, I shall say that it i undoubtedly a beast of epic proportions.

Although I am highlighting these two songs, every 'proper' song on here (that is to say, not filler) is equally splendid and contributes to this albums immense relistenability. However, on the subject of the filler, its pretty crap, especially when its being contrasted against the sheer intense atmospheric mastery of the main attraction (hence the 99). It doesn't really detract a whole lot though, because the skip button was invented for a reason.

And there you have it. The fact that someone as shockingly lazy as me could be bothered to write a review of it, one this long at that, should be enough to convince you its definitely worth checking out, even if your interest in black metal is minimal. This is easily one of the best black metal albums of the decade, and effortlessly stakes its place side by side with the elite of the second wave.
And another thing; this album is a grower. Its fully quality comes out in relistens where you can really get inside the music rather than just living for the moment as with more extreme black metal stylings.


Overall: Perfect production, amazing atmosphere, some really original and unexpected twists which always work, and some crap filler which is easily skipped.

The Ruins Of Beverast, the one man creation of Alexander von Meilenwald, burst onto the black metal scene in 2003, but it wasn't until 2004 that the bands reputation really began to grow. Looking at the reputation of this band is like watching the evolution process in fast-forward. Since 'Unlock The Shrine', The Ruins Of Beverast have gone from strength to strength in a number of ways.

This is one band that are REALLY interesting. Although Alexander von Meilenwald's creation is primarily black metal, you cannot lump the debut full-length into the same group as most of black metal's record, even the best one's. 'Unlock The Shrine' is a look into the future, if you will, at what black metal has the potential to be and could be now if artists put a bit more effort into their works. This man, Alexander von Meilenwald, has single handily proven what can be done. What makes this band even more astonishing is that glaringly obvious fact, it's a one man band. Such a fact leaves no room for excuses when it comes to bands talking about how they'd be stronger if they had an extra guitarist, or another vocalist because this man has done it all himself and what a start to life in the big time.

Obviously, black metal will never have the appeal of most modern day music, but this is one band that could break away from the majority and form some sort of 'super league', which would involve the very best acts in the genre from all over the globe. If black metal were a competition and we needed a European representative, look no further. Germany, over recent years anyway, has begun to provide the adoring public with more and more acts to be blessed with in the most unholy ways. The Ruins Of Beverast are just the next act, in a long line, of German acts who have broken through the surface to reveal a core, hidden at the very depth of the genre. Bands like these make black metal what it is, supreme.

'Unlock The Shrine' could be seen as a metaphor. Well, it certainly is seen that way by me. If we look closely, we may find several acts, creeping around the darkness that is the black metal realm, that are just as good, if not better than this band, but for now, i'll be quite happy to stay put and adore The Ruins Of Beverast. How does Alexander von Meilenwald make his music so special? Well, there are a number of ways in which he goes about achieving something quite spectacular. First, the innovative guitar work. Although this German act does use standard black metal formulas like repetition, The Ruins Of Beverast do it in a way that makes you feel as if you're hearing every chord as if it's new to you. It's fresh and exciting.

'Unlock The Shrine' is a masterpiece for other reasons too. The way in which it can mould several different soundscapes throughout one song and thus, a vast selection of atmospheric gems on the whole, is simply remarkable. From the epic 'Between Bronze Walls', with it's dark atmosphere hidden under lays of astonishing musicianship to the free flowing sounds of 'The Mine'. No matter what it is you like about black metal, you'll probably find it here. Dark, depressive and raw. Seemingly able to control the genre and mix it with others is another strength to this masterful debut. Doom, funeral doom and sometimes drone with those low droning riffs, The Ruins Of Beverast cannot be compared to any other act out there. Try as you might, you won't succeed in finding another band like this. The different variations of vocals. Dark growls, whispered voices and tormented screams, it's all in there and do you know what? It doesn't sound at all out of place.

A different side to the band is the each emotion portrayed. The horrors of life come alive as The Ruins Of Beverast put you through your paces with this daring assault.

This album is a transcendent, apocalyptic tour-de-force of hatred, agony, and horror. The sound of "Unlock The Shrine" is reminiscent of some other bleak artists like Xasthur and Forgotten Tomb, with a bit of the epic feel of Nehemah thrown in. It's not straight Black Metal, as there are a lot of ambient sounds in here as well. But that is part of the coolness on this CD. Most of the time, when BM bands use too many sound effects for atmosphere, they end up being dull, but the atmospheric passages on this album only serve to heighten the cold, deathly feel of the work, and also to perfectly set off the genuine songs. "Between Bronze Walls" starts off slower, then builds to a thunderous blaze. Then, after the wasteland of "Skeleton Coast", we are treated to the full-speed assault of "Euphoria When The Bombs Fell". The moody passage of "God Sent No Sign" sets you up for the horrific, unforgettable "The Clockhand's Groaning Circles" – what a masterpiece of Black Metal that fucking song is.

The pounding, hypnotic "Procession Of Pawns" should be dull, but it only builds anticipation for the monstrous slayage of "Summer Decapitation Ritual", which starts off a blast speed, then halfway through busts out a Summoning-style march-and-pound section that left my jaw hanging in amazement. "Cellartunes" is like being trapped in a freezer for two minutes until the dragging nightmare of the title tracks destroys you. The next track is just a two-minute track of slow pounding, but you can't stop it, because right after comes the monstrous epic of "The Mine".

The sound, and the uses of sound on this disc are impressive as Hell. The vocals are double and triple-tracked, but not synched exactly, so it sounds like a chorus of screaming, growling, muttering hatred. The production is undeniably a Black Metal sound, but the lower end is huge. Meilenwald uses a thunderous synth-bass sound to underline all the atmospheric parts, and he also uses it to accent the music itself. It sounds like a goddamned battle-drum, and when he uses it to open a song, as when "Decapitation Ritual" blasts off, it sounds like the fucking world is being destroyed.

For a debut, this is just a monster album, as it demonstrates a mind totally in control of all the elements of songwriting and sound to create a bleak and crushing soundscape. I don't know if it's even possible to go anywhere after a terrific debut like this. "Unlock The Shrine" is just a monument to sound and fury, and it is just a pity that not enough people will get to hear it, or understand it even if they do. This is Black Metal for the elite. Amazing.

Originally written for www.metalcrypt.com

Europe is a region of the world that seems to have its priorities in order when it comes to making some truly fantastic black metal. Most of the bands best associated with the genre are from Scandinavian countries. Darkthrone, Emperor, Mayhem, Manes (Norway); Bathory, Setherial, Dark Funeral, Shining (Sweden). Generally, the history of black metal as we know it today (traditionally, second-wave BM) was conceived in that corner of the world. However, other musicians in other countries around the world were just as involved in creating their own brands of black metal. From the utterly raw, primitive, uncooked compositions of France, to the in-your-face, black/death summonings of Austria's bubbling underground, to the skull pounding, evil as fuck carcinogens bleeding from the lands of Finland, to the ravenous bellowings of Greece, black metal was spreading like a virus.

Germany also played a pretty pivotal role, breaking out with bands that are pretty well known today, some for the better (Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult, Bethlehem) and some for the worse (Nargaroth). The one I'm going to talk about also hails from Germany, The Ruins of Beverast. This album, Rain Upon the Impure, is their second full-length record. Released in 2007, it takes a wholly different approach from its 2004 predecessor. While Unlock the Shrine went for feverish cacophony with abrasive production that was loud and deliberately uncomfortable, the 2007 follow-up does almost the exact opposite with its sound. Instead of corrosive loudness and pummeling pace, it goes for a slower, quieter approach with more of an emphasis on atmosphere and ambiance, its approach succeeding with grandiose results that must be heard to be believed.

The seven songs that compose this album flow like a river into a pitch black stream. Throughout its explosive eighty minute run time, the sole composer of this entire album, Alexander von Meilenwald, engrosses his listeners in a world devoted to the bitterly cold realities of war, death, religion (in a negative light, of course), and other horrors the world has experienced at one or more points in its life. God is dead in Meilenwald's world and so is all remnants of sanity. Riffs are slow, churning, and deliberate, being delivered with intense passion. There's a definite commitment to the craft of songwriting on here, one that is unrivaled by his contemporaries. “50 Forts Along the Rhine” starts the album off strong with some darkly haunting ambiance of water churning underneath stomping hooves and whinnying horses, which this transitions smoothly into a muffled riff that's hard to tell if it's one strummed riff or if it's being picked. Either way, it's followed by a war cry and the drums come in before droning to a doomy crawl about a minute and a half in. It varies in tempo and structure throughout its 13 minute length and is a fantastic lead into a near perfect album. “Soliloquy of the Stigmatized Shepherd” is without a doubt my favorite song on here, being the slowest and one of the most atmospheric on the album. It also highlights some of the best moments on the album with the best, most unforgettable guitar riffs and drum passages for me.

Continuing on, we have two more incredibly long songs that project just as much of a harrowing atmosphere as the previous ones. "Blood Vaults" and the track that follows it, "Soil of the Incestuous," are proceeded by a somber instrumental piece. The first of the two is my favorite and is one of the more melodic tracks to follow such a devastating first set of songs. The riff patterns that open up the first of this pair are the most memorable part of the song. Mellenwald continues to show his prowess as a songwriter and composer, proceeding with sudden stops preceded by rumbling riffs that fade into patches of quiet spoken samples before exploding into a moderately slow black metal stomp that opened the track up. The meditative haunting choral chants that pop in the background occasionally, as well as carry the mid-paced sections, keep adding more shades of grey to this already bleak portrait. It's amazing to me to know this album was put together by just one man. I can say the same thing about artists like Devin Townsend, Varg Vikernes, and Wrest. These are artists who are wholly dedicated to their craft. I'm not sure if I mentioned this at this point, but the drums are intense. Just ferocious. The drumming on the first album was proof enough Mellenwald was running on an infinite tank of fuel. This album here is even more proof of that. The intensity at which this man drums for the amount of time he does is pure insanity. The parts that bookend the opening and closing parts of the first song is proof enough of that. Not only that, there are plenty of slow moments to break apart the faster bits to add to the great variety that this album is already awash in.

The album closes with the title track and a short two minute ambient piece. There's a brief moment of vocals in it but, like the previous one, it serves as a placeholder to lead us into the title track. The short piece ends as it fades into a rainstorm before a crack of lightning pierces the listener's ear before the same haunting riffs as before ring true as they have throughout this album, except the arrangement is clearly far bleaker and uncompromising. Beautifully unsettling choral harmonies once more fill this song and drill into your psyche more feelings of discontent. This is the pinnacle of the beauty as the album works itself to a crescendo. It then concludes as powerfully as it began, with just as much discomfort and evocative emptiness as you got when it started. If anything, it ends with the entire cave you were exploring at the beginning caving in on you wholly.

I love this album. Really, I don't have much else to say beyond that. If you find this album for sale somewhere, buy it immediately. Digital, physical, I don't care. Buy it. Give Alexander von Mellenwald your money. He deserves every last penny.

After the mediocre Blood Vaults, I was not inspired to listen to Alexander Von Meilenwald anymore. It was a huge deception after 4 years of waiting. To rebalance things, I went digging into the first offering of The Ruins Of Beverast named ''Unlock the Shrine' and to this day, it is still a masterpiece even though it was released back in 2003. Then, ''Rain Upon The Impure'' came out in 2006 and the rain fell on us; the impure. Alexander von Meilenwald's second opus can not be summarized. It is a roller coster with unimaginable turns and twists, an overflow of cool ideas (chants, riffs, atmosphere) melted into one album containig one of the most inspiring theme heard in recent years. It will disturb the unclean spirits and awaken the demon that lurks in the dark because Alexander sure did conjure the black forces on this album.

''Rain Upon The Impure'' spares no one and from the opening of "50 Forts Along The Rhine", a flood of violence is unleashed and a primitive black orchestra, that is very abrasive, transport you into an immense desolate place like the many forts standing next to you. It does not take a long moment to start things off because his fury will give place to a demented melody which he borrowed from mysticism; the enchanting choruses that make you think that Alexander is in a choir chanting the hymns of gloried gods and the acute guitars sounding like a rallying call are all found in this song. The unspeakable terrors created by this man engulfs us in a heavy and unhealthy atmosphere, but also the serious and inhuman voice of Alexander von Meilenwald is sending a hellish message throughout this song. All of these are the other jewels found on this single track. Indeed, in spite of a more distinct sound of slower and heady riffs coupled with a less disturbing atmosphere, it is like sending a strong odor of sulfur through the air that will hang around you. It is like the pit before you enter hell, it stinks of greatness. Unlike the latest album, the influences invoked the blaspheming and black universe of The Ruins Of Beverast, giving it a more mysterious aura.

There is a statement that is all the more striking when listening to the next track "Soliloquy Of The Stigmatised Shepherd". It is of a very low tempo which makes the doom/black metal sounds like a symphony. With a sumptuous energy, the clear vocals are filled with emotions as well as more catchy riffs are propulsing us into a kind of light trance. It is like letting you touch the light with your fingertips, but a harsh and disturbing climate plunges you into an even more profound uneasiness. The song is like the spectre of Thergothon, not far from this old shadow that they produced back in the days. A familiar feeling is felt by the interlude noise of "Rapture", which brings to life your deepest fears and summon what it seems like sombre designs.

The mastermind behind TROB is Alexander von Meilenwald and he has the ability to rise the impious crowd through these last two pieces whose are parallel with ''Blood Vault''. This is just striking because he still kept the essence, the blackness of The Ruins Of Beverats into a whole being, but much more defined. Throughout the next tracks, the tension always rises one notch with a sizzling and always perceptible reminder that the religious and omnipresent occult side of Alexander is present throughout this entire masterpiece. You follow the movement like watching the tail of a strange beast, which guides you to an unknown destination. The more you follow and the more you feel like you are crossing a city full of dark streets. The choruses and the choirs are again more and more obvious and compelling like the sound of a church's bell before Sunday mass. The drumming is constantly pounding and the decadence of this long process finally arrive like echoes while a hideous voice exhorts the crowds on "Blood Vaults (I ˗ Thy Virginal Malodour)". The macabre ceremony can finally begin with surprisingly melodious riffs, but also you find words spoken from time to time by a woman. The music is full of devotion, very engaging with each alternating passage of extremely violent melodies. You might experiment this with "Soil Of The Incestuous", a song that will reveal the truth for many who live on this earth.

The rain is finally pouring and the soil is incapable of absorbing our sins, this is where we stand now as the message is finally giving us a clear vision of what is like to stand in the rain. The culminated orgasm is finally reached with the title track. With its devastating effects, you suffocate in this ever more tainted air. You search in vain for the horizon, but you are swallowed up by the opaque clouds until the ancient gods finally emerge from their repose shedding blood and destruction. This could be his final vision because the apocalyptic "Rain Upon The Impure" is the end of all things and the beginning of a new era made of unfathomable suffering. It is a glorious ritual that's unfold and is filled with mesmerizing riffs. You cannot have a more spectacular ending than this.

If perfection does not exist, it is clear that this album is approaching fairly close to it since its delivering an occult and disturbing atmospheric black / doom sound. It is also synthesizing alone the purest evil that exists, stirring your deepest anxieties and fears. A soundtrack that is both nightmarish, but also paradoxically haunting the likes of the "Necronomicon" or "The King in Yellow". This nightmare will not stop haunting you and tormenting you until you listen to it again.

What is undeniably Alexander von Meilenwald's most ambitious work ever is also conspicuously the album I've listened to the least from The Ruins of Beverast. I don't use the term "genius" lightly, but in this man's case it virtually goes without saying. Who else, short of a genius, could uplift black metal to a truly Wagnerian scope? The Ruins of Beverast's first album, Unlock the Shrine, was one of the most inventive metal albums I've ever heard, with an atmosphere that waxed psychosis. Had I the chance of catching that debut when it came out, I would have been at a loss to predict where he'd take his sound from there. If Unlock the Shrine offered a practically unbeatable level to top, von Meilenwald did the only thing he could: He changed the rules entirely.

Rain Upon the Impure is a fucking mammoth. Even if you've heard other black metal albums that match it for length, I'm hard-pressed to think of another that draws a par in terms of sheer scope. If any measure of genius behind The Ruins of Beverast was left in doubt, think about how one guy manages to conjure the impression of a symphony with his guitar, drums and voice. Unlike the vast majority of would-be solo artists in black metal, I can't imagine a full band having executed it any better. Although von Meilenwald's drum speciality rings true (on this moreso than any other TROB album) the guitars are appropriately biting, the vocals maniacal as ever. Rain Upon the Impure tends to beg for hyperbole in any description.

Each of The Ruins of Beverast's albums are different from one another. I somewhat regret the fact that Rain Upon the Impure was the first one I listened to. Where Unlock the Shrine was intuitive and manic, and the third LP Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite was controlled and emotional, Rain Upon the Impure is sprawling. Riffs and musical segments that would have occupied small spaces on Unlock the Shrine are stretched out over wide distances. This isn't done for the sake of atmosphere (see:Burzum) so much as furthering the sheer sense of scope. Although certainly less dynamic than the schizoid shifts on Unlock the Shrine, I don't think Alex ever pushes his compositions too far here. Sparse, funeral-doomy sections (of which there are plenty here) might lack the same emotional drive I've heard on The Ruins of Beverast's other two masterpieces, but there's a unique experience in hearing such intense, harrowing music with such a patient pace.

Each of the five pieces (excluding the two interludes) are vast and memorable. The most memorable parts of Rain Upon the Impure are when the sprawling assault coalesces into something melodic or otherwise standout-ish. Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite strikes me as one of the greatest albums I've ever heard precisely because von Meilenwald emphasized this element of his composition. The clean-picked intro to "Soil of the Incestuous" beneath tortured howls struck me with awe since my first listen. "Soliloquy of the Stigmatised Shepherd" is the most consistently interesting piece here, ranging from gloomy doom stretches to one of the best uses of "chanted" vocals I've ever heard in a black metal album: "Father, make of me the seed for a silent meadow..." With regards to the lyrics here, I've always been amazed how chilling Alex can be with his choice of words. Even reading them by themselves is enough to elicit an eerie feeling. Unlock the Shrine lyrically revolved around tension and psychosis. On RUTI, the lyrics reflect a sense of emptiness. I think that's a perfect way to match the music here.

The longwinded approach on RUTI would have fallen to pieces in lesser hands. Alexander von Meilenwald's extent of skill as a musician comes through on this album however. Considering the amount of sleepy, "empty" parts here, it's a small miracle that he keeps it engaging through his performance. The guitarwork is minimal but ultimately effective; it's the drums where he really shines. Every hit of the snare feels like it was written down via composer's notation before getting committed to the recorded medium-- I don't think there's any other metal album where I've gotten an impression like that. The most interesting instrument at von Meilenwald's disposal, surprisingly, is the production itself. For a lo-fi production, I am shocked it can sound so vast. RUTI is somehow made to sound like it was performed by a full orchestra in the most opulent concert hall ever arranged. It'll sound murky and weak to some, and heartstoppingly awe-inducing to others. Whatever the case, it's all to this album's benefit that it's graced with such a distinctive recording style.

Though I'd never be able to call Rain Upon the Impure less than a masterpiece album in polite conversation, I do find it interesting that I've never been able to enjoy it as much as the other albums. Even 2013's Blood Vaults, which easily counts as the project's weakest to date, offered more for me to appreciate on my own terms. But with that in mind, I understand fully why RUTI would be considered his magnum opus. All elements of his musical character are drawn out here to their maximum extent. Would there be shame in saying The Ruins of Beverast sounded infinitely better when he condensed the sound a bit with his next album? It matters little in the end. Rain Upon the Impure creates an experience like no other, and it's ultimately difficult to compare it to much else heard in the black metal spectrum.

I'm not entirely sure what the album cover to this masterpiece of an album is, but for the longest time I assumed it was staring down into a cave, with long, winding stalactites hanging down and meeting the floor of the abyss. The colors are dull, muted, and it seems to be intentional that it's near impossible to make out what's happening on this album cover. This is worth a mention due to the fact that there is no better way to describe this album, from the noisy, muted guitars, howled and echoed vocals, and abysmal, faded out nature of the production. There's a very concept and theme driven nature to the album and it's the reason for the success of the album "Rain Upon The Impure".

I'm going to admit to not have given any other album by Ruins of Beverast a chance, because this album is completely draining in itself. The best place to start, and the hardest thing to get around, is the production and mixing. Bass? Fat chance. Intelligible chords during fast sections? As if. Comprehensible lyrics or vocals? Not found here. With the popularity of bands like Portal and Ævangelist, this isn't an uncommon gimmick to an extreme metal album, but the catch here is, funny enough, how catchy this album is. Spare the abysmal atmosphere, there's moments to find enjoyable in this music. Instead of being made for just mood or strange songwriting, there's a clear sense of both the instruments and rhythms, and this very much comes out in the doom-y, choir filled, haunted parts of tracks like "Soliloquy of the Stigmatized Shepherd". Even through the production, you can comprehend the music with ease. A choral section not out of place for even a church emerges from the black, taking the lead of the mix. It's a refreshing blend of the muddied atmosphere of modern black/death giants, and the very unique beauty you can get from black metal. This, however, does not stop it from being draining as mentioned before. Eighty minutes of the bleak nature of the album really wears down on you, but this hindrance is a true blessing once one is conditioned to the album.

Vocals are, surprisingly enough, varied. Not just in the choral sections, but there is not a single song where the same vocal technique is used for more than a few minutes. Kept at a prime minimal, vocals are used more for background noise to break up monotony within each track, not for sing along or something to actively pay attention to. This can't be taken as a bad thing, as it's fully intentional, and does it's job as well as any other element of the album. Drums suffer the only flaw of the album, with the production mixing them far in the back, which wouldn't normally be a problem. This problem arises in the faster, more black metal driven sections, when the bass drum is shown to be as loud as the guitars, and more distracting than anything else. Thankfully, what would be detrimental for a black metal album is saved by the fact that this is not a particularly fast record, and drums are kept at a slow pace for a good portion of time.

During the drafting of this review, I realized why this album is hard to review well. The individual components of this work can be heard in other albums, but sound more cheesy than anything else. When all the parts of this album are together, there's a distinct atmosphere it creates, and does unlike any other work of black metal I've ever heard. This is an excellent starting point for the more dark, chaotic, and cavernous black/death/doom metal in the world. This is not an album for everyone, but instead, an album that must be listened to, it's fear be felt, it's echo be heard, and then for the listener to decide if they want to experience it again.

Alex von Meilenwald's solo project The Ruins of Beverast might have just faded from my memory had he only recorded and released Unlock the Shrine. While a decent album, it lacked a lot of elements that could of made it spectacular. That was 2004 though. In 2006, Alex returned with a new album named Rain Upon the Impure, and it's this album that introduced me to The Ruins of Beverast in the first place and ultimately solidified my respect for the project.

Those of you exploring Beverast's discography chronologically will probably expect Alex's dark atmosphere conjured up on Unlock the Shrine to be present again on the sophomore album. What you probably won't expect is that the darkness is taken to a whole new magnitude here on Rain Upon the Impure. While Unlock the Shrine had a claustrophobic atmosphere like exploring a dark cellar at night, Rain Upon the Impure's atmosphere invokes thoughts of large amounts of space instead of limited amounts like wandering through a massive expanse of plains at night while in the distance you can see a man-made ruin the size of mount Kilimanjaro. I prefer this more external atmosphere, and Alex does an exceptional job of conjuring it up on Rain Upon the Impure. The guitars are a lot clearer than on the previous album and are the key force driving this album to greatness. They're played at various speeds within each song and the production makes them sound downright menacing.

Besides the metal instruments, there are these choir sections that help the album sound really dark. Their presence is limited, but they're in just the right places to count. Unlike Unlock the Shrine's sparse choir sections which sounded more like an unnecessary add-on than anything, the choirs on Rain Upon the Impure actually feel like they belong in the music. They're used as atmospheric background enhancers and perform extremely well in this role especially on "50 Forts Along the Rhine" in an extremely epic riffing rainstorm that begins at 2:25 as well as in "Rain Upon the Impure" to toll the album's end. The choirs also sound great when used to recite lyrics in the refrain sections of "Soliloquy of the Stigmatized Shepard" and "Blood Vaults", at such times they're brought up to the front of the mix.

While the playing styles and tempos of Unlocked the Shrine varied between the songs, the styles on Rain Upon the Impure is more consistent between songs, but more mixed within one song. Each song has its own fast and slow parts, but none of them are arranged in the same way, and there are those that contain more fast parts than slow parts. "Soliloquy of the Stigmatized Shepard" for instance contains more slow parts while "Rain Upon the Impure" contains more fast parts. One thing to note is that the really slow parts border on funeral doom metal, but the atmosphere and heaviness in these parts an give even the best funeral doom bands a run for their money; "Soliloquy..." is really great at this.

This album is longer than its predecessor, clocking in at almost eighty minutes compared to seventy, but this time is used in a much more productive way than on Unlock the Shrine. The interludes that littered Unlock the Shrine are all but gone; there's only two short ones on Rain Upon the Impure. The rest of the album consists of five actual songs, none of them shorter than thirteen minutes. Each of these songs are given a fair share of variation in them to keep the listener interested, so Rain Upon the Impure is overall a much more fulfilling listening experience.

Rain Upon the Impure is a grand and unique album. A few minor changes to the mix and production would have made this album worthy of a perfect 100/100 from me. As it is though, this is an awesome album that is proof of Alex's musical writing talent along with his instrumental skill and proof that Germany can hold its own in the black metal department. This is an extremely high recommendation for fans of atmospheric black metal. Gold star, Alex!

'Rain Upon The Impure' is Alexander von Meilenwald's first attempt at repeating the glory of the debut full-length album, 'Unlock The Shrine'. The great thing, well, one of the great things about the first album was it's daring nature. It wasn't afraid to tackle area's of music that black metal had rarely, if ever, ventured to. Alexander von Meilenwald experimented with sound to create perhaps the best black metal creation in years. 'Rain Upon The Impure' to me, signifies The Ruins Of Beverast intent is to remain highly experimental. I think when the second record came out, people judged it far too quickly. Stating they hated the change in production, it didn't suit the band, there is a distinct lack of creativity, but as time as gone on, people have come to realise that drastically changing the style of this German band is experimentation.


'Rain Upon The Impure' is by far a more typical black metal album in many ways. The production is exactly what you'd expect. You couldn't say it's poor because everything is still clear enough to hear properly. However, it is vastly different. For starters, it's not entirely clear either. The huge amount of distortion that has gone into the guitars especially has changed the face of this German band. The production was clear and that's how people liked it because it was a bit different. Now we're faced with a production that commands the attention of it's audience, which in many ways is a good thing. Instead of judging this record purely on past efforts, we're forced to listen to 'Rain Upon The Impure' carefully and judge it for what it is. In my opinion, it's not as good as the debut, but it's still a great album, but in it's own distinctive ways. Such an occurrence is probably a major bonus for fans. Hearing the same material, but slightly recycled isn't interesting. Getting a taste of something completely different to what we were expecting is and that is how 'Rain Upon The Impure' has panned out. It's different and thank fuck for that. If it tried to imitate the style of the last album, it might fail spectacularly, so why bother?


There was a dark feeling on the previous album, but here is where it really takes off. 'Rain Upon The Impure' is a malicious metalfest. It's not as fast flowing, it's much slower and takes time to develop. In this instance, we probably end up with far better soundscapes than before. On 'Unlock The Shrine', there were a number of shorter songs. They didn't detract from the atmosphere or harm the record in any way, but with 'Rain Upon The Impure' we're faced with assault after assault. This is a diverse approach, despite what many may think. The bass and guitars are based more towards repetition than before. This keeps that darkened atmosphere I spoke of earlier at the surface. The percussion is also an element that has become more repetitive too. Blast beats are occurring more often and more freely. Ambient acoustics offer strange periods of relaxation before the wave of darkness covers us all again.


'Rain Upon The Impure' is well on it's way to becoming a masterpiece just over a year after it's release. Long may the success continue.

"Rain Upon the Impure" is the second album released by Alexander von Meilenwald, the drummer of legendary "Nagelfar", under the monicker "The Ruins of Beverast". Here he handles all the instruments and vocals by himself.
Esentially it offers a deeper and darker experience than most black metal albums. On the way we find a hard wall of guitars made out of a buzzy but controlled sound with barely distinguishable melodic fluctuations. The drumming is very tight and intense. Von Meilenwald definitely improved since "Unlock the Shrine" released 2 years before. The ocasional bass notes reverb offers a necesary dose of fluidity. Vocally, the album is most impressive. Von Meilenwald's growl is similar to that of Akerfeldt from Opeth on "Orchid". However the former is deeper and stronger. Ecclesiastic choirs and movie fragments are scattered along the album, which bring the listener to a contemplative state and imbue the atmosphere with obscurity. Vincent Price quotes Edgar Allan Poe with his ethereal voice in the interlude from 'Blood Vaults': 'And travellers now within that valley/ Through the red-litten windows, see/ Vast forms that move fantastically/ To a discordant melody'. The fragment is from 'The Haunted Palace', a horror movie from the 60s, made after Poe's telling with the same name. The production gets most credit for the atmosphere though, distant and resonant, you can still hear the instruments without any major intricacy.
Overall a very long album (one hour and 20 minutes), atmospheric, contemplative, dark in the true meaning.

How can I possibly convey in mere words the utter mastery of Black Metal wielded by the superlative Alexander von Meilenwald? I was completely blown away by his 2004 debut as The Ruins Of Beverast Unlock The Shrine, and I bestowed upon it the only '5+' I have ever given to a BM album. So I was sweating this new one: how could the first album be matched, let alone surpassed? Surely such a monstrous beast of sound and fury had to be a one-off fit of brilliance by a genius who would vanish or kill himself before he could even try.

Amazingly, Rain Upon The Impure is more than a worthy successor to Unlock The Shrine, and manages to be equally brilliant in a completely different direction. While Unlock The Shrine was a display of despair and crushing misanthropy at the hands of a master of sound and aural space, it was an album made up of parts. You could easily see the parts fitted together – brilliantly so – but it was a distinct album with a lot of room to breathe. The music was focused on distinct riffs and melodies, all set apart by ambient interludes that built the atmosphere and gave the album a more sprawling feel than this one, despite that Rain Upon The Impure is almost ten minutes longer.

Rain Upon The Impure is an exercise in fusion of sounds into a single, onrushing wave. The instruments are much less distinct this time, all of them mixed together and pressed into a crush of sound that initially bewilders with its density and richness. On first spin I had no idea what to make of this, and it sounded like an impenetrable miasma that I could hardly make out. The whole is mixed very together and a bit low, so you have to turn it up about twice as loud as more slickly produced metal. But again, Meilenwald knows exactly what he is doing, as once this is cranked up, it wraps around you like a tidal wave and carries you away, and it will never let you go. There are seven tracks here, and five of them are full songs all clocking in around fifteen minutes each. This is a nearly eighty-minute album that seems too short, and when the last magnificent tone of the title track is over, I always think "Fuck, is that all?" and I hit 'play' again.

There is so much going on in each song that it seems pointless to even try describing it. These are densely-packed, massive oceans of fury and emotion, cut apart here and there by enigmatic voice-samples and amazingly delicate melodies. Witness the unearthly Gregorian chant that is built throughout "Blood Vaults", and the simple yet haunting acoustic melody that fills and fulfills the album strongpoint "Soil Of The Incestuous". There is not a single track here I would make shorter by a single note, and this album could be twice as long and I would still want it to be longer.

Some people would compare Meilenwald's genius to other legendary musicians which have haunted the metal landscape. I myself will maintain than no talent to equal his has ever yet been seen within the Black Metal circle, and may not ever again. The man is single-handedly redefining what Black Metal is about and what it is capable of with his seemingly inexhaustible abilities. I am amazed to be struck speechless yet again by this visionary artist, and I can only imagine what waits in store for the future. If you care about Black Metal at all as a vital, growing genre then you must have this album. Unbelievable.

Originally written for www.metalcrypt.com

Glorious. „Rain Upon the Impure“ – the kind of album while listening to it someone has to ask himself why there hasn’t existed something similar before. Thereby the fundamentals are quite obvious: A production so unutterable black and reachable still escaping the clutching limbs in its franticness, a vocal performance which convulses marrow, bone and the Norwegian scene in their foundations and in the end the essence: Atmosphere in wasteful abundance.

Too short? Well, let’s try again.

Apocalypse – A term not alien to the world of music considering the clear bandwidth of styles commiting themselves (partially at least) to the fascinating musical version of this phenomenon. Mr von Meilenwald isn’t new to this profession either: With “Unlock the shrine” he raised the bar for apocalyptic sound experiences to a pretty high level. But that it would be necessary to secure oneself a new measure together with your copy of “Rain Upon the Impure” – not many could have considered that.

I’m not on giving too much away right now, as the album has been properly praised already by numerous Webzines and such, but what this man has constructed with comparative simple elements is indeed more than just remarkable: eighty minutes in time the listener is welcomed by ecstatic flushes, enters even (funeal-)doomlike fields and will rub his eyes beholding the sometimes just fantastically composed melodies. Not to mention the bag full of surprises.

Would Beethoven be still alive and in possession of working sences he’d touch his chest: Such a preconceived flow including complex dynamics and a tragic, no, addictive depth – my everlasting thankfulness (to throw away every bit of objectivity).

Thanks for your attention. Oh yes, buy it.

Originally written for:
http://miasmes-morbides.blogspot.com

Those of you continuing to follow The Ruins of Beverest's discography chronologically will run into Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite next; and if you were wowed by Rain Upon the Impure, there are some things you might be wondering. Will this sound at all similar to Rain Upon the Impure? What can Alex do to match the creative dark mastery of that album without making the damn album again? You'll be pleased to know that as one of Germany's best black metal composers, Alexander von Meilenwald has a lot of tricks up his sleeve and many ways to make two albums different yet both be incredible listens.

The production on this album is the cleanest sounding yet; and while the menacing tone of Rain Upon the Impure has been almost entirely removed here, an equally thick yet more mournful atmosphere takes its place and is just as awesome to be immersed in. It still feels like an external type of atmosphere like Rain Upon the Impure had, but now on Foulest... the image is that of wandering a vast expanse of ancient ruins along a mountain range (at night of course).

The guitars are just as heavy here as the previous album, but again they're closer to mournful sounding than totally evil. And again, they drive the music forward more than any other element. The riffs are for the most part well written and fun to listen to be they fast passages on "God's Ensanguined Bestiaries", tremoloing to slower tempo songs such as "Mount Sinai Moloch", or the echoing soft guitar work all over the album. The choirs also return and again provide a nice addition to the atmosphere. The more up front instances are more numerous in this album with most of it singing in Latin to add a nice eerie churchish effect. Their background presence also sounds nice throughout the album with my favorite example being a trance-like passage in "I Raised This Stone As a Ghastly Memorial" starting at the 6:15 mark.

Overall though, Foulest... is a noticeably weaker album than Rain Upon the Impure. Though there are plenty of strong tracks here, most don't quite have the power of Rain Upon the Impure's songs. Two songs in particular have some awkward moments in them that draw them down in quality. First is "Kain's Countenance Fell" and its lackluster doom riff that contains no atmospheric qualities whatsoever before it transitions a little too quickly into a faster chorus riff. The other is a really choppy riff in "Blood Vaults II" that starts after the laughing sample near the beginning of the song. It makes the song sound like it's skipping as if you had a bad CD player or mp3 rip of the album and could have ruined the song completely if it didn't transition away a couple of times and finally go away for good by the 4:35 mark, but thankfully it does go away allowing the song to end strong.

There aren't enough shortcomings to bring Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite down as a whole though. Even the two weaker songs have their share of desolate atmosphere and awesome riffs; and the stronger songs are well worth listening to with my favorites being "I Raised this Stone as a Ghastly Memorial", "God's Ensanguined Bestiaries", and the epic closer "Arcane Farmakon Messiah". Alexander von Meilenwald hasn't run out of musical magic yet and has made another excellent album.

Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite. Well… what is there to say? I don’t really know that I’ve ever heard a more off-putting album title. I don’t really know why it was thought to be a good name for such an incredible album, but I suppose some things are best kept as secrets. I guess the absolutely repulsive nature of the title will drive away those with too weak a stomach to handle the music within. Consider it a warning.

The Ruins of Beverast is the brainchild of Alexander von Meilenwald, who previously drummed for German black metal act Nagelfar (not to be confused with the Swedish group Naglfar) and has worked as a session musician. TROB‘s music could, too, be described as black metal, but it goes far beyond what likely first pops into your head. Consider it more a type of blackened death/doom with sludge influences.

Meilenwald works more like a painter with his work than anyone I have ever heard. Everything is made according to his design and execution, custom tailoring all aspects, from instruments to vocals to production. Incredibly, no one particular thing that he does appears to be what he is best at. His guitar playing, writing, drumming, vocal work, engineering, and everything else you hear is done at exactly the same soaring level of capability. This allows for an album that has virtually no holes, no points where you think “well, if he had done this, it would be better” or “I really can’t understand what was going through his mind there.”

With that said, certain aspects of TROB‘s delivery are more audible than others. To start, the dirty, “buried alive” vibe of the production creates a claustrophobic yet airy atmosphere. The instruments sound like they are emerging from entombment, while Meilenwald’s layered chants and thunderous growls reverberate as though they were recorded in St. Peter’s Cathedral. This forms an interesting dichotomy that I cannot recall hearing anywhere else. Outside of the production of the record, the musicianship hits right on the bulls-eye. Meilenwald’s technical ability is never in question, and his sense of give-and-take seems embedded in his cerebellum.

Black metal is one of the farthest-reaching genres in all of metal. It manages to put in question many of the ideas of what we think of as metal. The Ruins of Beverast is currently doing this more than anyone else. Could this sound be the future?

[find this review and more at http://www.mindovermetal.org/]

This is a mighty work that combines elements of black metal, doom metal, maybe some death metal elements, symphonic and operatic music, influences from industrial and experimental music, and even some melodic pop. It's all the work of one man as well, one Alexander von Meilenwald, who's played with several other bands including Naglfar, and he brings all his experience in writing songs, playing and production here. Every track combines black metal and doom in some way if in different proportions though my impression is that there seems to be more doomy-sounding music early on the album than in the later half of the album. Von Meilenwald has an ear for catchy music and ambience to attract and sustain listener attention and most songs as a result boast something like a chorus or a musical motif that lift them above being purely black metal or doom. Sometimes this does mean there are moments of kitsch, especially when von Meilenwald launches into multi-tracked choirs of voices, some of which are typically BM-grim and raspy and others which are clean, operatic and rather bland. The songs also usually segue into one another in unusual ways, often through a passage of industrial-tyle, found sound or dark Gothic ambience of a series of chants - and these interludes turn out to be separate tracks in themselves - so that the entire album, all 80 minutes of it, needs to be heard as one very complex work to be fully appreciated. This is going to be a tall order for people not familiar with this particular project of Von Meilenwald's.

An early stand-out is "God's Ensanguined Bestiaries" which would be a straightforward black metal song rocketing along as fast as it can from start to finish except for a moment halfway through where everything slows ri-i-ight down and the song's ambience changes to a strange American Western desert Gothic feel for a clean-voiced chorus to chant a revelation about humans. The song becomes a mini-drama that could stand on its own apart from the rest of the album and beginner listeners probably should home in on this track first to get an idea of what the rest of "Foulest Semen ..." is like. In the middle of the album is "Kain's Countenance Fell", a mix of fast BM, lumbering melodic doom and vocals that range from reptilian throaty groans to Latin-language chants. "The Restless Mills" is another stand-out with a rolling rhythm, trilling guitar, some bell-like tonal effects which may be electronically produced, and some recorded female vocals early on in the song before it becomes a full-on aggressive black metal track: it's a condemnation of Christian belief, portraying Jesus as stuck in a peculiar industrial hell.

For an album that rails against Christian belief and human actions done in its name, among other themes, there's quite a lot of multi-tracked vocal choral singing done almost Gregorian-style and which probably is a parody of traditional Christian choral singing. This for me detracts from the aggression of the music, especially if a track like the ninth one "Blood Vaults (II - Cleansing the Levant)" is dominated by such singing which produces an insincere, theatrical effect. That's a pity in a way as the lyrics are quite good and I have the impression they're a sarcastic comment on Christian zeal. Most other songs here have lyrics that are a bit overdone and on the purple prose side. Final track "Arcane Pharmakon Messiah" has bawdy lyrics about a wannabe leader who hasn't quite got the substance needed to succeed in his chosen endeavour. I can see the humour in this but not everyone will think mixing toilet humour with black metal is a good idea.

Technically the album boasts a good and consistent standard of playing but the murky production covers up the bass and some of the effects and samples used. Aggression and raw power also tend to be blunted and the songs lose space and depth. I think von Meilenwald intended for this album to be like a layered self-contained mini-universe of music and sound with surprises coming from out behind the black metal and doom but the muddiness makes it impossible for listeners to hear the layers as they should be heard and the use of reverb, which normally would add a three-dimensional atmospheric effect and mystery to the singing, makes the vocals seem one-dimensional in this environment. Maybe that's why I find the multi-tracked vocal parts so cheesy and often bland.

On the whole this is a very ambitious work that might one day be regarded as von Meilenwald's masterpiece, faults and all. Perhaps some time in the future it might be re-recorded with the production problem ironed out and then we'd have an album that works the way it should. Among other things, the music might sound less complex than it actually does and the 80-minute playing time might be less of an endurance test.

There is something inherently wrong with the world I live in if I can enjoy the records of the talented Alexander von Meilenwald as much as I do, but still not consider his sole creation of The Ruins of Beverast a sure fire favourite of mine. Despite my strong feelings towards each of the three full-lengths Meilenwald has produced under this moniker, I still find that they can be pretty intimidating to the point of inaccessibility. Whether it’s about the levels of experimentation, or the sheer length of the songs, there is a quality to The Ruins of Beverast that I find so overwhelming that I can only listen to this blessed records occasionally. Even now as I listen to the hypnotic structures of songs such as ‘Raised this Stone as a Ghastly Memorial’, I feel intimidated by the sheer presence of atmosphere and overwhelmed by the grand scales of power in every specific element which flows before me like a seemingly gentile river which could potentially turn deadly in a matter of minutes give nature’s strong grasp over all that exists. Applying this metaphor to the music of The Ruins of Beverast seems fairly apt.

As on the short filler songs like ‘Transcending Saturnine Iericho Skies’, Meilenwald gives his third opus delicate textures which weren’t in view of the public during his second mammoth record, entitled ‘Rain Upon The Impure’, a record with a muggy atmospheric texture to it due to the dirty production and distorted guitars. To me, essentially, this third record combines the avant-gardé skill of the debut with the dirty, mesmerising power of the sophomore. Initially, I must admit, the title for this opus did put me off. The imagery behind the words ‘Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite’ is gross enough to put the least squeamish people off their food and I was no different. I don’t know the explanation behind the title and I’m not entirely sure I want to. Regardless of the title, there is also an inaccessibility to the music which proceeds the opening moments here, too. I don’t consider this an entirely negative thing. In fact, it’s more of a positive when explained as coherently as possible. Sometimes there are records so good that they shouldn’t be overplayed, or simply cannot be overplayed due to the fact that they’re just that good for fear of tarnishing them in time.

The quality of the musicianship has never been so high as it is here. Whether we’re analysing the opening song, or songs like ‘Kain’s Countenance Fell’, each song explicitly delves into the wonderful imagination of Meilenwald and takes us on a cosmic journey through galaxies we’ve never seen or heard about before. With songs like ‘The Restless Mills’ we’re introduced to traditional elements such as repetitious drum patterns and fast paced tremolo riffs, but this doesn’t last long as Meilenwald is an expert at chopping and changing the direction of his material through song writing which maintains a perfectly timed balance throughout. As the distorted, tremolo guitars fade to black, the samples and accompanying keyboards fixate the listener on images of Pagan rituals, or tribal dances, even natural imagery in fillers like ‘Theriak - Baal - Theriak’ which, albeit brief, stir up a lot of emotions in me, from an uneasiness to dread as the animalistic cries ring out over the indecipherable voices. With the use of entrancing percussion, the intoxication of the listener is heightened and as on any routine drug trip, we’re invited to watch the swirling atmosphere build and build and build ever so slowly to a crescendos of massive proportions. For me, the true talent of Meilenwald is hard to pin point because he truly does possess many.

Through his time with Nagelfar and so on, he has become an expert drummer, noted for his skills and variation, two characteristics which are often exuded by himself on this epic encounter, again, as shown on songs like ‘The Restless Mills’ as he varies his approach play by using blast beats and then moving swiftly on to a less rigid and more fluent style before his audience begins to become restless with the lack of innovative techniques. ‘The Restless Mills’, amongst others, is a perfect example of Meilenwald’s perfected use of imagery through music as he moulds his songs into poetical forms, delighting the senses as any great poet does with his firm grasp on what makes a record a huge success. With the use of a subtle, but perfectly audible mechanised sound (probably created by the keyboards), the atmosphere of the song really does produce a feeling of restlessness and repetitious hidden in the soundscapes, which poetically speaks of the daily grind of day-to-day life as an average man, or woman.

His experimentation doesn’t just occur in the form of his drumming style, but also in his vocals. I don’t consider Meilenwald the best black metal vocalist, but he conveys his eerie message well in his rasps and shrieks. Not only does he provide a typical basis when it comes to the vocal work, but he also uses clean vocals which sound as if they’re chanted, which is in keeping with the Pagan vibe I hear in the other elements, drawing the piece together well with underlying aspects that doesn’t necessarily appear as important at first, as beautifully shown on songs like ‘Blood Vaults (II - Our Despots Cleanse the Levant)’, which has a very aggressive tone to it, particularly in those crunchy guitar riffs which feel like they’re grinding my bones as they progress towards their destination. Songs like this also show a balanced rhythm to his work which is also shown on the stirring debut as repetitious riffs flow alongside solos and vice versa. The only area I find that needs some work is the bass. It doesn’t need to be prevalent, but it could be more audible. However, I feel the atmospherics of The Ruins of Beverast may be too grand to allow it to be felt more often. In conclusion to this, I find that this record is just another essential album from one of Germany’s finest artists.

Although Alexander von Meilenwald's The Ruins of Beverast is one of Germany's best black metal bands, his work is quite different than his peers. But this has never been the case so much as it is with Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite, his third album with this project and the best yet. Semen is one of those albums which derives its influences from wherever it feels. Whatever works. In fact, it's often not black metal at all.

"I Raise This Stone as a Ghastly Memorial" christens the album with a plodding rhythm and sludge-like melodies, beneath the deep chants of Meilenwald. Yet the track shifts ever downward, to a breech in which the snarls and rasps return, before submitting to the brazen lower string melodies and plucky synth line. "Alu" is a brief interlude of chants and feedback to set up "God's Exsanguined Bestiaries", a blasting breath of rotting decrepitude offset by the barking growls and a driving melody within the soup. "Mount Sinai Moloch" thunders with majestic evil, a steady percussion overlapped in ringing sludge chords and light, airy synths. The entire album reeks of this ancient, mystical force that will enthrall you. "The Restless Mills" and "Arcane Pharmakon Messiah" are two of the other breaktaking pieces.

Note that the album is slow and bombastic, as nearly akin to sludge/doom/funeral metal as black. It's a powerful statement, and for a one man project, quite impressive. The tones are bold and crashing yet never overproduce, lending a raw vibrancy to the atmosphere. It's another groundbreaking notch in the belt for Beverast, and a great listen for any fans of the 'avant garde' in occult, dark metal music.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

80 minute albums are a mixed bag in black metal. Normally containing repetitive or hypnotic song writing and having a heavy focus on atmosphere, these albums are not for the casual listen – they require immediate and constant attention as they take you on an epic journey into the mind and soul of the artist. A black metal album of such length is often difficult to digest in one listen. The many intricacies and layers of sound present mean that several spins of the disk are required to fully comprehend the genius and quality of the album. Quite often the formidable length of these albums is also enough to simply put a person off. If this is the case, fear not.

Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite is the most powerful, atmospheric 80 minutes of your life, a musical descent into the monolithic halls of the insane and the impure. Alexander von Meilenwald has created an opus that manages to hold your attention for the entire duration, without a second wasted. The long songs and short, eerie ambient interludes do not bore, but make you crave the sound and experience that much more. This album will be over before you know it, but your first reaction will be to simply press the play button again.

The song structure is one of the key elements that holds such a titanic album as this together. Each lengthy black metal song is preceded by a brief, haunting and chilling atmospheric passage. Not only does this help to break up the density and length of the songs, but gives the listener time to absorb and comprehend the atmosphere and music taking place. The revisiting to the previous album ‘Rain Upon the Impure’ through the song ‘Blood Vaults (II – Our Despots Cleanse the Levant)’ shows that the new album can evolve from the sounds, themes and influences of the previous, providing an experience that is fresh and mature while maintaining the brooding, dank, heavy and dirty picturesque scene that the Ruins of Beverast conjures.

Recent black metal, and especially this album have really revived the heavy and dense sound that has normally been associated with the nitty-gritty side of death or doom metal. Atmospheric black metal has traditionally been drawn to the raw and ambient black metal scene, however this push into other genre influences has allowed bands like the Ruins of Beverast to bloom. Make no mistake, this album is strictly black metal, but the undeniable influences of heavier genres is clearly evident in the guitars and vocals. The guitar and bass sound rivals the heaviest death or doom band, and combined with the intelligently placed ambient sections, has a strong resemblance to Leviathan’s ‘Tentacles of Whorror’ (see song ‘Theriak – Baal – Theriak’). With deep, raspy vocals that range from demoniacal whispers and grunts to clean, chanted vocals, ‘Foulest…’ has helped carve a new path for the Ruins of Beverast and black metal in general.

Originally written for TheRestlessMills.blogspot.com

Well after the great songs masked by (deliberately) impentrable production on Rain Upon the Impure I was hoping for a production more like Unlock the Shrine. What we get is indeed similar to unlock in its basic production but if anything meatier and clearer. While as some reviewers have noted there are a number of 'doom' paced sections on this album it is in no sense a doom album, to suggest otherwise is to totally miss the point. I have never heard an album so rich in atmosphere as this, the weakest sections are at least very good and the numerous highs (track 1 7 and 10 included for me) are without parallel. I kid you not. Better still, Alex von M seems to be a formidable intellect as well as a profoundly gifted musician so as with the other albums you can forget worries about infantile rantings about satan and instead soak up some truly dark thoughts and observations transposed into music. The lyrics stand out as probably the best in BM - at least in English-penned lyrics (Lunar Aurora and of course Nagelfar are also lyrically interesting though neither in the same manner as Beverat). Easily the most rewarding album of the last 12 months. This is the 'experimental black metal' parallel to Strongorrth, it's THAT good. I deducted 5% ONLY because on one track the sludge bits hang around just a little too long without variety. Very minor criticism though.

Listeners who think BM should always run at a certain minimum average tempo (like one of the reviewers on here) should steer well away though. There's plenty of variety on this album but almost no straightforward black metal motifs (which is a good thing). This album will indeed stand as a ghastly memorial...for all the run of the mill BM bands who have nothing interesting to say - now is the time to give up!!

Aachen’s (Germany) Ruins of Beverast is a one-man project; my interest in them was primarily raised by the fact that Alexander von Meilenwald, the guy behind it, was once the drummer of the excellent (since then sadly disbanded) Nagelfar (not to be confused with Sweden’s Naglfar!) And also because for some reasons there’s so much hype around the band.

Even though there’s not much common in the two formations, one thing is certain: both seem to like pretty extensive songs. But while Nagelfar preferred epic hymns, in the case of TRB the 80-minute playing time is due to their doom influences. Let me note that this is a bit too much, I think. I would have nothing against a 50-60 minute long album, but nearly one and a half hour is too much of this music (and of any music, I risk to say.)

The music is based on slow/midpaced black metal, which gets faster only in some rare cases. To this comes a great portion of doom that doesn’t exhaust in slow, tormented themes but also brings some elements that counter-balance the music’s rawness: sampler effects, fragments of synth sounds, chorus themes whispering from the background, and some clean vocals too. The drum work is especially fit to this, hitting the same theme through long minutes over and over again, with something almost like ritual ambient minimalism.

What by all means belongs to the strengths is the sometimes really archaic atmosphere generated by the here and there sounding choruses and samplers added to the raw, bare-sounding guitars. That makes the music not just dark but also gives it a particularly ancient, otherworldly atmosphere. The frequent repetitions do good to these parts, unlike to more traditional doom/black themes.

As to the negative side: the problem in my view is the same as with so many of the underground doom-influenced music. Although the music undoubtedly has a peculiar, dark feeling to it, this is so overstrained that after a while one can get used to it and then the whole thing gets somewhat boring. It would be of much help if besides the slow, whirling tracks the faster, classic-sounding black metal pieces (such as Blood Vaults) got some place on the release. In these parts it becomes obvious that Alexander is not at all devoid of songwriting talent: he managed to write true darkly flowing underground black metal themes that very well counter-balance the doomy depression. Only the proportions should change, and this album would at once be much better. Which is not saying it’s bad; I just think that the hype around it is exaggerated.

Originally written for http://www.kronosmortus.hu

Again, he's done it again. The problem with making a pretty much perfect debut album like "Unlock the Shrine" is that you then have the unenviable task of following it. Alex Von Meilenwald managed this almost impossible task by unleashing the dense, iconoclastic "Rain Upon the Impure", which both built on the adventurous sound of the debut album, while at the same time blazing new paths and breaking new ground. Now, with the release of "Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite" he has done what even I did not think he could do: he has topped them both.

"Unlock the Shrine" was an existential workout proving what the sounds and forms of black metal could do if they were commanded by a genius with ambition and a total lack of fear. "Rain Upon the Impure" was an effort to make that sound denser, uglier, and more inscrutable than before, producing one of the darkest, least welcoming albums in black metal history. I was unable to really even imagine what Meilenwald could do as a follow-up without retreading old ground, but it really says something that he has produced an album that is utterly surprising while still seeming like the logical next step. "Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite" is darker and more complex than "Unlock the Shrine", with something of the oceanic crush of "Rain Upon the Impure", yet it is much more open and less forbidding than that album. This is…well I'm having a hard time describing it aren't I? The delights of this dark masterwork are well-hidden inside coiled and arcane song-structures. Four listens was what it took for this album to open up to me and reveal its secrets, so complex and ingeniously constructed it sounded like a completely different album each time. This album ate me alive…for days I couldn't stand to listen to anything else. Nothing else was as satisfying, as challenging, as involving as this labyrinthine tour through dark caverns and bleak shores. I don't think any other album this year will be as gratifying time after time after time. If you want to experience what black metal is capable of doing as a real art form, then you must hear this. Buy it, listen to it, absorb it, be absorbed by it. Masterful.

Originally written for www.metalcrypt.com

I was introduced to this band by a friend of mine giving me this album to check out. I now owe him the credit of introducing me to what is, in my opinion, one of the best extreme metal albums ever recorded. Indeed it does not seem accurate to call it extreme metal as it goes so much further than that. This album is in my opinion a masterpiece and I don’t say that lightly, there are less than a handful of recordings I have heard that I would score above 95%, I also know the impact that first impressions can have and I can honestly say that I have listened to this album close to a hundred times over the last year and a half so that it would not play a factor in my score.

I'll point out first that 'The Ruins of Beverast' is the creation of sole member Alexander Von Melienwald. It amazes me that one man can create something so much more impressive than a band with four or five members can. He is a true songwriting genius. The sound of this album could fit into 'atmospheric blackened doom-death' but, as I said before, this recording goes far beyond labels and titles. The use of choir-like backing vocals and church organ sounding passages makes this seem more like a religious sermon than an album. A representation of the church not as it is portrayed in the media or by Christians themselves, but as it really is, a repressive and resoundingly dark and evil congregation under the control of the preacher's voice.

Alexander's powerful vocals are preached to the listener. They have a definite similarity in their delivery to the sermons of religious leaders, they impose themselves over the listener (without the brain-washing intentions of real sermons). The echo-like effect that has been used on the vocals throughout make it easily believable that the vocals themselves were recorded in some massive cathedral. Alexander's vocals have a predominantly guttural approach even though they are more spoken than actually sung. There are moments where he lapses into classic black metal screams (listen to 'Daemon' at about six minutes in) and even beautifully sung moments like the intro to 'Malefica'.

Production wise everything sounds perfect. There are similarities to black metal production techniques here though everything sounds fresh and unique in that respect. Imagine a very clear version of black metal production with no static. There is a thick reverb/echo effect over everything here and, as I said before, it serves to increase the deep atmosphere of the songs. Alexander's guitar has two main sounds, a low rumble on the fast tremolo/chugging sections and a beautifully light, heavily reverbed tone on the slower arpeggio-like sections. The keyboard/organ sections add emotion instead of coming across as cheesy. The drumming on this album however deserves real credit. Alexander proves that slow/mid paced drumming came be as evil as the constant blast beats that most black-death metal bands rely on. Each drum has been recorded perfectly and the cymbals sound fantastic (honorable mentions to Gnarl for his engineering/mixing). And at last! A black metal recording were you can actually hear the bass! The bass sounds thick and nasty with each pluck fading off with a shudder. It does not just copy what the guitar is doing at any one moment ether, but goes off on its own. His bass playing is much slower and more widely spaced than anything else so it really hits home when it’s used. The only problem I have with the sound of the album is the alarm clock like beeping during the end of the last song ('Monument') that, just like an alarm should, breaks the sweet dream like atmospheric haze and brings you back to reality. This can be avoided by playing the album though only one speaker channel (mono instead of stereo) but that is not what it's creators intended, so with their intentions in mind I just ignore it. If it were not for this it would be an absolutely flawless listen.

The atmosphere of this music is so thick and absolute that it summons images into the listener’s mind. When I listen to this album I envision a cathedral made of black marble with deep blue stained glass windows. Alexander stands hooded at the head of the deeply shadowed hall preaching his lyrics. Such is his ability to create a very real atmosphere that the listener can create their own world from it. This is strengthened by the fantastic cover art by Axel Hermann which perfectly captures the mood of the album.

I really can’t sum up in words how good this album is. Even with the length of this review I don’t feel I’ve touched the sides, I'd have to write a book to do it justice. I would recommend it to lovers of dark, atmospheric black/death metal. However I believe this is an album any true music fan should listen to. I love this album as a whole but if I had to pick two songs to check out I wound say 'Malefica' and 'Spires, The Wailing City' as they show a good variety of the styles used. I do believe this album deserves classic status. It’s the kind of album we can look back on and see what true excellence really is. Absolutely fantastic!

This is the album I've been the most hyped about in 2013. After scouring The Ruins of Beverast's first three full-lengths and basically playing Rain Upon the Impure to death, I was ready for more. Finally Alexander von Meilenwald, one of the best black metal musicians in Germany, released Blood Vaults. There's always been album each year that's made me hyped up to the max, and in 2013 it was Blood Vaults.

That sums up my thoughts as I was about to listen to this album for the first time. I'm going to say now though that I'm disappointed in the outcome. Even on the first listen, I was underwhelmed. I wasn't expecting Alex to top Rain Upon the Impure, but I was hoping for something that sounded like a step up from Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite; I didn't even get that. In the months leading up to the release, "Malefica" and "Daemon" were released as teasers and I listened to them almost every day because both those songs are awesome. Unfortunately, they're the best songs on they album, a fact made worse by the fact that they're also right at the beginning of the album; there's still 60 minutes of music left that can't compare to these two tracks.

One of the things Alex got right...again...was the atmosphere though; I'm sure now he can't get it wrong no matter what. It's dark and brooding once again. If you've been following the band you're going to be used to that by now. This time however I listen to this album and think of some radical Ordo Malleus Inquisitor from Warhammer 40k, a daemon hunter scouring forbidden texts for a way to fight the otherworldly monsters. Given the lyrical content and overall theme of the album, I find this setting extremely appropriate. The keyboards and choral effects really bring out this feeling as they do sound really church-like especially with the pipe organ. Alex's harsh vocals also add to this atmosphere. Though his tone hasn't changed much from Foulest..., the delivery on this album makes him sound more narrative like he is indeed reading from the Inquisitor's journal or directly from the forbidden text.

The music as a whole is most clean sounding Ruins album yet, which is fine by me. All the better to hear that menacing guitar tone that I love hearing from the band. There are some really great riff passages here that benefit from the cleaner production, especially in "Daemon" and "Malefica". However, the production doesn't save some of the more lackluster moments of the the album where the fault is indeed songwriting. Following the first two songs, most of the material on the album is doom metal and it isn't interesting doom metal either for the most part, it's the kind that just turns into a drag to listen to. I know Alex has done doom metal on Ruins in the past and some of his best songs are in this style such as "Soliloquy of a Stigmatized Shepard", "I Raise this Stone as a Ghastly Memorial", and "Arcane Pharmakon Messiah". "Ornaments on Malice", "Spires", and "A Failed Exorcism" aren't bad but they aren't nearly as interesting as those past songs. I feel that some of these songs go on longer than they should, especially "Monument" which is easily the weakest link here which is a pity because it's the closing song and I get disappointed by weak closing tracks.

I can't even listen to this album from beginning to end anymore. I go up through "Malefica" and then stop. Sometimes I'll go into "Ornaments on Malice" as well but rarely further. I could listen to the other tracks if I just picked them out and just listened to just the track, but I really don't want to. What's the point? I feel that if Blood Vaults threw more fast moments into these songs, they'd be better. "A Failed Exorcism" does have a fast section, but the riff is so weak and it exists so briefly that it's not even worth it. As much as I hate to say so, I have to say that Blood Vaults is the weakest Ruins of Beverast album yet. I hope Alex continues to evolve as a musician though. He's come a long way and I can see him going even further.

It's been almost a year since its release now. If you're a fan of the band and haven't listened to this yet, don't go with high expectations. If you're totally new, I suggest you check out Alex's earlier material first.

Each of the 4 albums Alexander von Meilenwald has released over the past decade under the banner of The Ruins Of Beverast has seen some stylistic shift. With Unlock The Shrine he continued on from his Black Metal past in Nagelfar, growing more chaotic and textural with Rain Upon The Impure and more Doom-influenced with 2009's Foulest Semen Of A Sheltered Elite. If you have heard any of the chatter around this latest cut then you will probably be aware that the Doom side of von Meilenwald's musical alchemy has overtaken his Black Metal heritage, but this album defies any lazy genre categorisations. In fact, with tracks like “Ornaments On Malice” the sonic makeup of Kramer's gospel seems to draw as much on the dissonant style of Death Metal pioneered by Incantation as anything from the Doom realm. Inevitably by the fact this album sees the biggest change in the band's sound so far it feels less focused than its predecessors. Side by side comparisons between such vastly different albums would be illogical, but in some respects this album might be seen by long term fans as inferior because of its lessened focus, and von Meilenwald seems to still be finding his feet when it comes to certain elements like his demonic voiceovers.

But you know what? This is still of a high enough quality to be counted amongst the top extreme Metal albums of the year. When it comes to the keyboard passages and the dark psychedelic effects this is all recognisably The Ruins Of Beverast but there is also the aforementioned vast and towering dissonant Death Metal riffs, and a huge dose of early My Dying Bride that manifests not only musically but also in how this music has a transformative quality that mentally transports the listener to a darker medieval time. Key to this is how fully von Meilenwald embodies the character of Kramer, the writer of the 1486 treatise on witchcraft Malleus Maleficarum. Injecting a unifying theme over artwork and lyrics is one thing, and matching this with Gregorian chants and overall hauntingly Catholic feel to the music is another, but the mark of this being a true concept album is the characterisation. The speaking in tongues on “Daemon” is an early showing of this but it reaches its peak with the demented ramblings on the cinematic “Trial.”

In spite of the denseness of the theme and the avant-garde nature of some of the music, for example the almost danceable rhythms that mix intoxicatingly with the Encoffination-like crawling riffs of “Spires, The Wailing City”, what is most surprising about this album is how pleasing a listen it is. At nearly an hour and 20 minutes in length the power of this album to hold the listeners' attention for nearly the entire duration is incredible. Black Metal, Funeral Doom, Avant-Garde... whatever you want to label this album as it will not fit. Musically, artistically, lyrical this is a s unique as it gets in the Metal underground. In a league of its own. [9/10]

From WAR ON ALL FRONTS A.D. 2013 zine- www.facebook.com/waronallfronts

Only in regards to a band of monumental calibre like The Ruins of Beverast could I call its latest album arguably the weakest of the four so far, and simultaneously laud it as one of the year’s strongest musical contenders. The Ruins of Beverast have long been black metal’s best kept secret, and since the gloriously psychotic Unlock the Shrine, the one-man act- a longtime creative outlet of former Nagelfar drummer Alexander Von Meilenwald- he’s been releasing music that’s consistently blown me away for its ambitious scope and atmosphere. Of the three albums The Ruins of Beverast have already released, I have, upon different occasions, thought of each one as potentially being the greatest black metal album ever made. I’ll try to keep background introductions brief, but if you haven’t yet heard Unlock the Shrine, Rain Upon the Impure, or Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite, you have yet to hear some of the most impressive and atmospheric metal ever pressed to vinyl. Now completing a transition towards doom metal that began with the last album, Blood Vaults is another expectedly excellent achievement, an hour-plus of music that’s as haunting and crushing as anything I’ve heard in the metal sphere this year. Incredibly high expectations aside, The Ruins of Beverast have delivered another masterpiece of atmosphere and intensity, with enough stylistic innovation to distinguish it from past work. This is blackened doom metal of ferocious quality.

The sound of The Ruins of Beverast has evolved beautifully over the course of four albums. Although Von Meilenwald was performing something more along the lines of psychotic black metal in 2004 with Unlock the Shrine, each album has reinvented the project as something new. Rain Upon the Impure took the black metal to arrogant extremes of atmosphere and composition, verging on a degree of ambition rivalled by Western classical tradition. 2009’s Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite was another necessary reinvention; now that one summit had been topped, Von Meilenwald began infusing his brand of black metal with doom metal and psychedelia. To summarize, it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that The Ruins of Beverast have drifted this far away from black metal conventions; even if TROB retains the same malefic atmosphere in the music, the means to getting there have certainly changed.

The Ruins of Beverast’s familiar blend of choral sampling, chaotic production and cinematic vigour are made anew with a crushing heaviness and funereal pacing. Disregarding the fury and aggression inherent in the music’s execution, Von Meilenwald has taken a relatively reserved approach in writing the music this time around. Especially when compared to the sporadic rapture of Rain Upon the Impure, the pacing is kept fairly conservative, offering more vested concentration and fewer surprise turns. Although part of me misses the pleasantly mild shock of hearing something unpredictable, the songwriting enjoys a new maturity through its focus. A stunning example of this can be found in the pristine “Malefica”, a dirge-like piece that meticulously erupts with equal parts dread and melancholy. Latin choirs and pipe organ are used brilliantly as a sonic contrast with the thundering metal instrumentation. Orthodox instrumentation is a painfully common trope in black metal, but it’s rare that it ever functions so well as this.

In addition to “Malefica”, “Daemon”, “A Failed Exorcism”, and the unsettling interlude “Trial” all stand out as highlights of the album, and some of the most memorable pieces Von Meilenwald has ever composed. Unfortunately (and this is a first for my experience with a TROB album) I don’t find myself as consistently amazed by each of the tracks. I’m not immune to the fact that a doomier approach entails with it a slower pace and behests a different kind of listening attitude than that of Beverast albums past, but a few of the ideas on Blood Vaults feel less profound and engaging than I’d expect from the band. For instance, “Spires, The Wailing City” and “Monument” are both crafted with excellent ingredients, but feel somewhat overdrawn past their due; the ideas themselves are almost homogeneously superb, but even the strongest structures wither given time. While Von Meilenwald is no stranger to long compositions- Rain Upon the Impure had even longer average track times than this- the sometimes plodding pace of the compositions can make some of the musical ideas feel less awe-inspiring than they actually are. I felt that Von Meilenwald struck a sublime balance between black metal and doom with the last album, a middle ground between crushing heaviness and exciting dynamics. Blood Vaults only sees The Ruins of Beverast tread deeper into doom territory, and while the devastating atmosphere and progressive scope are still here in full, I don’t find myself quite as blown away by this stylistic shift as I have been with his past work. Then again, comparing a pristine mortal vintage to the ambrosia of the gods has never been a fair deal, has it?

Although Blood Vaults represents a markedly more reserved take on composition for Von Meilenwald, his execution sounds heavier than ever. I strain myself to think of another guitar tone that has sounded this heavy and crushing. Even though most one-man acts feel fittingly one-sided in their delivery, Blood Vaults feels remarkably well-rounded. The orthodox instrumentation is integrated to a haunting effect, and the drums- Von Meilenwald’s flagship instrument- are as intensely performed as ever. As it is made clear from the opening incantation “Apologia”, Von Meilenwald’s vocals take a hideous life of their own. Laden with echoes and a viciously malevolent tone, his growls are plenty evocative and fit the album’s sinister atmosphere and malefic interpretation of Christian theology. His clean vocals- when used- are deep and ominous, and mirror the Latin choirs nicely. Compared to past albums however, it feels like his vocal delivery offers a little less range however, focusing on the low, echoed growls and dismissing much of his higher shrieks. It’s an understandable transformation however; Von Meilenwald understands the implications of this stylistic shift, and The Ruins of Beverast reflects that.

As difficult as it is for me, I feel the only fair way to approach this album is to do one’s best to dissociate it from TROB albums past. Clearly, it’s much harder said than done, but to compare Blood Vaults against its predecessors would reveal this as the least vital of the four. With that in mind, I do not mean or hope to say that The Ruins of Beverast has broken its streak of relative perfection; this is a marvelous work, and I have no doubt that Von Meilenwald will continue to release masterful work in his own time.
To put it simply, the album is devastating.

The first three Ruins of Beverast albums are masterworks in scope and ambition in metal. Not even just black metal – they are triumphs of metal as a whole. They work with huge amounts of experimentation and a singular idea in each one, and yet they are always engrossing. While such serious music is difficult to listen to on a daily basis, especially when the albums all scrape the 80 minute mark, they are nevertheless some of the finer examples of what metal can do as an art form when really pushed.

This new album Blood Vaults shows sole composer and performer Meilenwald going in a bit of a different direction. Instead of a sort of long, spacious journey like previous albums, which took the listener to unimaginable hells and to the depths of human madness and misery, Blood Vaults is a circular album, a ritual of sorts to cast its unholy spell. It works because each song uses similar or in some cases the same motifs and themes, creating a very unified feel – the first three real songs after the opener have this somber, pounding melody, the same in each song but expanded a little and used in a slightly different context. Further songs work on less dynamics than previous albums, preferring to sort of drone on in a funeral doom-ish manner, except with a more death metal aesthetic to the rumbling guitars and intoned vocals than you normally get with funeral doom. The songs are built more on repetition than on the vast, expansive journey-like feel of previous albums. I preferred the old method, but this new style is still effective in its own way.

For one, the production helps – this sort of wraps around you like a cocoon, with a huge and immersive sound that doesn’t let go. I really think every Ruins album has a perfect production for what it’s going for – the sheer warhammer assault of Unlock the Shrine, the impenetrable density of Rain Upon the Impure and the blackened sludgy steel of Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite. And now the slow, rolling waves of Blood Vaults.

The songs here will crush you with repetition and the sheer density on display. The songwriting is dark and alchemical, and as a whole this is a very complete-feeling album, largely due to the repetition of melodies and ideas. The build-up of “Malefica” and the incredible “A Failed Exorcism” comes out to something taxing to listen to but also rewarding. The songs are never particularly eventful, preferring to ride out one or two chief ideas for a while and let the impact settle in your bones like a hard rain. Meilenwald is good at this as he’s always been, though I don’t think the idea is as perfectly executed here as it could be.

The downside is that I just don’t think there’s as much dynamic here as before – that was not what Blood Vaults was going for, but I do think Meilenwald set his sights a little short here and tried to stretch himself in directions he hadn’t gone yet – perhaps with too much haste. The constant slow tempo and the droning oppressive songwriting simply doesn’t seem to have the level of pure soul-sucking engagement that previous works did – I don’t want to say I’d really change anything on this, as that would compromise the singular vision at hand, but I think the lack of faster bits is sorely missed. If Meilenwald didn’t want to add them, that is fine, but I think the ethos of them should have been here – even without fast parts, the slower bits need more dynamic and flow to them.

As is, we have an album exploring a bit of a new direction in that it takes the idea of the last album and condenses it into a black, evil gel from which there is no return, once the listener is enveloped by it. The sheer density of the songwriting is somewhat offset by an uneven feel and at times it’s not as exciting as it could be. Maybe some songs could be shorter by a minute or two and the album would be more cohesive for it. But even with its flaws, this is still a powerful piece of work by a very relevant band. Even though it isn’t perfect, it still manages to have an effect on the listener, so for that I like it. I hope it doesn’t take another four years for Meilenwald to crank out another one. I for one will be eagerly awaiting a follow-up.

First and foremost, I am personally a massive fan of The Ruins of Beverast. I began listening to them (or I should say, him) when a friend linked me to "Rain upon the Impure". It is easily my favorite black metal album of all time, and I've been listening ever since. I own every album, with an exception to "The Furious Waves of Damnation" demo and the two splits. However, this review will not be a single-minded praising of everything Meilenwald. I have some criticisms which some fans would crucify me for making, but they must be said.

This album is an impressive cacophony of twisted, demonic choruses and majestic, infernal melodies. With that said, it took me a few listens for some of the tracks to grow on me. It is tempting to compare this release with that of its predecessor, "Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite", and it is a temptation that I am inevitably forced to give into. I can claim in utmost confidence that "Blood Vaults" is far darker; however, whereas "Foulest..." could, in some circles, still be considered a black metal album with a pervasive doom influence, this cannot be said for "Blood Vaults": all vestiges of black metal have firmly moved into the funeral doom category. It might be fair to call it something like, 'blackened funeral doom'; it isn't fair, however, to still call it black metal. Far be it from being a negative, I would call it a positive; it is the evolution of Von Meilenwald as a musician.

The album's production is vastly improved over its predecessor's and the drumming and guitar rifting is crystal clear. Some who hearken back to the days of "Rain upon the Impure" may be disappointed by this, but I wish to impress upon them that the poor production of "Rain..." was done so thoroughly on purpose for that album. The flow of "Blood Vaults" seems, on first listen, to be a lot slower than any release prior, but this suspicion dissipates as one delves deeper into the album: it's just as fast in some parts as "Foulest...", and in many ways, is much faster and heavier. Tracks such as, 'Ornaments On Malice', 'Spires, The Wailing City', and 'A Failed Exorcism', are deceptively slow at their beginnings but turn into malicious, wailing kicks which don't fail at exorcising the balls of comfort.

I believe I only have one major criticism of this album, but to be fair, this is only a personal preference which some of you may not agree with. My criticism is Von Meilenwald's utter lack of screaming. In "Foulest...", the high-pitch screaming which is so iconic of black metal is minimal but alive and well in a few tracks ('God's Ensanguined Bestiaries' and 'Mount Sinai Moloch' to name a few); this gave "Foulest..." a crucial element of black metal which made it possible to categorize it as such. In "Blood Vaults", it seems like Von Meilenwald's voice has gotten deeper to the point of no return. I might even make the heretical claim that his voice has deteriorated with every subsequent release; or perhaps this is merely a methodical, artistic evolution which Von Meilenwald has chosen to champion.

All in all, I was very impressed by this release. I give it a 92 out of 100, due to two reasons: I feel like the last track, 'Monument', does not do the album's finale justice. I cannot rightly compare it to finale's like, 'Arcane Pharmakon Messiah' or 'The Mine', as it simply doesn't stack up with these mind-blowing and memorable tracks. The second reason was mentioned in the previous paragraph: Von Meilenwald's lack of screaming, and I should add, lack of untarnished clean vocals (which is a shame - he has such a haunting, entrancing voice). Coming from a die-hard fan of The Ruins of Beverast with an obvious bias in favor of the band, I found reviewing this album difficult but necessary. I recommend you pick this one up - you will not regret purchasing this dark masterpiece; I guarantee that it will seduce you just as it has seduced me.

Alexander von Meilenwald, sole originator, songwriter and performer of all instruments for The Ruins of Beverast is the most creative artist in black metal today. Before examining his latest work, a brief overview of his history is in order. His official musical career in heavy metal began when he was just a teenager, as he and Sveinn von Hackelnberg pounded their way out of obscurity in Nordrhein-Westfallen. Fast-forward about twenty years -- Meilenwald's Nagelfar, for which he obliterated the skins, bowed out proudly and successfully after its release of Virus West. Hackelnberg is now the proud owner of Ván Records, and together they have been directly involved with the likes of Verdunkeln, Urfaust, Truppensturm, Graupel, and the highly underrated Kermania, just to name a few. Reads like a list of who's who for that part of the world, doesn't it? Eventually, though, many true artists reach a point at which their only collaborators are the frightening realities that exist in the darkest and least explored corridors of their minds. Drilling that far into the mind and excavating whatever nightmares we have either suppressed, or have simply let grow on their own, is something that many of us will never do. Alexander von Meilenwald not only does this, but he transforms them into pure art by carefully crafting notes, words and dissonance that ensnares his listeners inside a maelstrom of his own ideas and then violently carries them away. Blood Vaults - The Blazing Gospel of Heinrich Kramer is more than just his latest album -- It's one more piece that leads us further to understanding the whole. Thus, in order to fully grasp this next piece, it is important to become acquainted with the The Ruins of Beverast's previous works as well.

Unlock the Shrine, the first full-length and also the first release for Ván Records (what a way to start, eh?), was disturbingly claustrophobic, leaving listeners baffled by the way it released such intense feelings of paranoid schizophrenia from their minds. The album plays like a tangible nightmare in the mind of one who is utterly left in darkness just before there is no air left to breathe and the walls of their insanity come crashing down around them. As one of my favorite writers stated in his review of said album, "Not only does this one-man project push the black metal envelope, he finds out where the envelope lives, follows it home, and torments it until it grievously hangs itself in the bathroom. This is the type of album that could swoop down on your sunny afternoon picnic and turn it into an apocalyptic hallucination featuring schizophrenic mumbling, weeping choirs, frenzied crowds, and burning, toppled buildings." Part of the power of The Ruins of Beverast comes from the fact that is a true one-man operation, and further backs up the argument that self-indulgence is mandatory when 100% pure creativity is to be expressed. Perhaps the most accurate summation of Alexander von Meilenwald's first effort can be summed up by an Ed Wood audio sample that is featured in the album's title track and comes right before Unlock the Shrine's central riff, "One is always considered mad, when one discovers something that others cannot grasp." Another unique aspect of this entirely-too-fucked-up-to-fully-comprehend black metal project is that it's so self-defecating. It makes the expression "inner-turmoil" seem like a blissful walk through nature. And yet, it brilliantly prepares us for the work that came immediately thereafter.

The band's sophomore release took the same nightmare and gave it a sense of purpose. Where Unlock the Shrine seemed it was written by a soul about to reach its end, Rain upon the Impure was purifying, edifying and spiritually awakening, while still dispalying equal if not greater amounts of schizophrenia. Where the former is dense and jam-packed with horrifying emotions that assault the listener from all directions, the latter is expansive, and gives the listener's mind a sense of purpose and understanding by, if only for an instant, allowing them to comprehend infinity. Where Shrine was deafeningly loud, Rain makes its listeners stretch their eardrums as much as humanly possible in order to grasp the unsuspected noises and haunting melodies that ooze out of every second of the album. Unfortunately, some fans simply have never been able to get over the album's production values -- A quality that others have grown to accept as Rain upon the Impure's most brilliant attribute -- It's a true double-edged sword. The chorus of "Soil of the Incestuous" sums up the overall central theme of this piece of the puzzle: "The path of the mind's eye shall never bifurcate." Whatever part of Alexander von Meilenwald that wrote Unlock the Shrine depicted a tormented soul that was wounded and set to self-destruct at any moment. Rain upon the Impure, however, gave that same being a spiritual awakening and sense of self-acceptance. Personally, comprehending what I consider to be his Meisterwerk is no less daunting than pontificating on the mysteries the universe, or on the fallacies of time and space. It is the most cumbersome piece of art I have ever attempted to grasp, yet never have I been so rewarded by such a challenge.

So what was left Alexander von Meilenwald to do now that his project has become self-actualized? Destroy Christianity, that's what! Isn't that what all black metal musicians do best? Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite was the definitive breakthrough album for the German one-man project. And would you just look at that album cover!? Fuck the corpse paint and church burnings, let's draw a picture of Noah's Ark and summarize Judeo-Christian historical figures into the album title, which I will not apologize for saying twice: Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite. Aside from bringing a much more accessible, cleaned-up production and direct, doom metal passages to the table, Alexander von Meilenwald proved on his third album that he is just as much a master of language as he is a master of songwriting and musical instrumentation. Foulest Semen is filled with very deep biblical themes (not to mention Latin), mainly centered around the Old Testament. He doesn't just blasphemy Judeo-Christianity (or should I say, the movement's history, as opposed to its teachings that have actually never been followed by the movement itself), he intellectually rips it to shreds and exposes it as the epicenter for human hypocrisy that it has always been. Songs such as "God's Ensanguined Bestiaries," "Kain's Countenance Fell," and Arcane Pharmakon Messiah" keep this central theme in heavily in mind throughout the entire album.

If I had to flatter one of my favorite colleagues in the world of musical penmanship, I would have to say there's not a more accurate description of Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite than this quote, before giving the album a perfect score and rating it best album of the year back in 2009: "...Black metal at it’s absolute peak. Majestic, sophisticated, revolting. As beautiful as it is deadly... metal has never sounded so nihilistically gorgeous. Supreme." Since the release of Foulest, the enigmatic Alexander von Meilenwald decided to turn The Ruins of Beverast into a live performing act (playing guitar and singing alongside Secrets of the Moon's Arioch), and if the name of the project alone wasn't enough to convince listener's of Alexander von Meilenwald's loyalty to paganism ("Beverast" is von Meilenwald's own derivation of the word "Bifröst" influenced by the old Norse term for the bridge between Midgard and Asgard), perhaps the adornment of Mjölnir around his neck at every live concert is. When keeping these things in mind, it should be no surprise that Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite was indeed the most sophisticated example of blasphemy against paganism's most notorious enemy. Perhaps the overall attitude of the album can best be brought to summation by the recital of the closing lyrics of the song "Blood Vaults II:" "O majestic ironhand of doom, have you received our immolation? Let our deeds bequeath a martial dogma to our descendants: Our despots cleanse(d) the Levant!"

The year was 1486. Catholic persecution had long-since unleashed itself all-throughout the world, but perhaps one of the most horrifying events was its persecution of "witches" prior to the thirty-years war. Heinrich Kramer, a Catholic clergyman of the Dominican Order and appointed inquisitor, decided to publish what I consider to be one of the most embarrassing and downright evil books the great "Church" had ever associated with its name, the Malleus Maleficarum, or "Hammer of the Witches." It's purpose? To reverse scientific findings stating that witchcraft was merely a pagan practice and superstition, to claim that witches were more often women than men (who were required to have sex with Satan in order to bring their witching abilities into fruition), and to create a list of procedures that could discover them and sentence them to death. Now, knowing full-well the Catholic church has always done anything in its power to eliminate the competition (Christian persecution of pagans specifically actually pre-dates this by one thousand years or so), the real question is whether the original writing was an enormous undertaking to get the public further involved in the tribal notion that anyone who wasn't Catholic is somehow "evil," or whether it's simply the work of a fucking madman. Since don't really know, let's assume both.

The Malleus Maleficarum states that three elements must be prevalent for witchcraft to exist (the evil-intentioned witch, the help of the devil, and the permission of God), and is consequently divided into three sections. To be brief, the first discusses the existence of the devil, and how he is most powerful when it comes to matters of sexual enticement. According to Malleus, "All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which in women is insatiable." The second section discusses witches and their recruitment strategies. The concluding section discusses legal matters and how witches could be prosecuted. The whole thing sounds both superstitious and obviously misogynous, but the strange thing is that many Catholic women took place in these prosecutions as well. Regardless of whatever the hell was going through the minds of all of these people involved, the historical facts are as follows: Heinrich Kramer went so far as to suggest both male and female witches practiced infanticide, cannibalism, and... had the ability to steal penises. As a result of this painfully illogical craze, over twelve thousand people were killed during the witch hunts that began with Kramer and ended a few hundred years later.

The latest from The Ruins of Beverast, Blood Vaults - The Blazing Gospel of Heinrich Kramer, is the project's second true concept album, and understanding its music is no less important than understanding the historicity behind it. Despite the disgusting history that took place around said themes, the album basically plays like a blasphemous celebration of the mind of a religious fanatic and complete madman. Not coincidentally, Blood Vaults is split into three parts, all of which sound like they could only come from the mind of Alexander von Meilenwald himself. Opening track "Daemon" destroys the listener's eardrums with the same style of ferocity and orgasmic carnage that was displayed on the debut album track "Euphoria when the Bombs Fell." Then comes the first departure... "Malefica" adds extended, independently-existing organ passages into von Meilenwald's repertoire. Initially, it makes the overall experience slower, calming and melancholic (especially when the central theme is kept in mind). Latin passages and chants are even more prevalent on Blood Vaults than they were on Foulest Semen, as are the elongated, doom-influenced guitar riffs and marching drums (the conclusion of "Spires, the Wailing City" is damn near trance-inducing). Stylistically, the various styles featured on each track are not necessarily congruent with the album's three "sections." Thematically, however, the sections are meant to mirror the attitudes on each chapter of the Malleus Maleficarum, as if the music itself is actually coming from Heinrich Kramer and the listener is trapped inside his warped, fucked-up state of mind. The only other outside voice featured is that of a woman as she is about to be put to death at the album's ferocious yet painful conclusion: "I leave to the superior to judge if I am good, And I would break myself before my tormentor would. My silence is not fragile, I shall not shed a tear. Inflamed by my Daemon, no ordeal shall I fear."

The Ruins of Beverast is one of the most fascinating bands to ever break the surface of the underground, and there's no telling where Alexander von Meilenwald will go from here. Blood Vaults - The Blazing Gospel of Heinrich Kramer continues a very rich theme of the anti-Christian sentiments and blasphemy in glorious fashion. As it stands, all four full-lengths are masterpieces in their own right. Where the first two cause the listener's mind to turn inward on itself and reflect on its own horrors, the latter two bring very vivid, powerful concepts to light. If the project is a new discovery for you, Blood Vaults is as good a starting point as any, and will no doubt grow after each listen. And so, ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves to become further obsessed with, and possessed by one of the most amazing, and most beautiful minds the world of music has ever known.

-Originally written for http://lastrit.es

“Exuvia” refers to the remains of an exoskeleton, left behind by insects, arachnids or crustaceans (I don’t have to tell you that I had to look this up). It symbolizes growth and shedding the old and insufficient to move on. Much like this, the new Ruins of Beverast album bearing the same name, signifies the emergence of something stronger as well as the start of a new chapter for the band’s sole member Alexander von Meilenwald.

Germany-based The Ruins of Beverast is one of the many noteworthy one-man black metal bands such as Botanist, Panopticon or Leviathan that have supplied us with a whole bunch of daring or simply outstanding releases over the course of their careers. Meilenwald, however, was not new to the genre when he started the project almost 15 years ago as he previously did the drums for german black metal trio Nagelfar (not to be confused with swedish Naglfar).

Nagelfar released three albums between 1997 and 2001 and have since become an insider-tip of the black metal genre. As part of this solo project Meilenwald ended up releasing albums such as Rain Upon the Impure that made a lasting impression on the metal landscape and garnered him a reputation for crafting enchanting atmospheric metal both rooted in traditional black metal and influenced by death and doom metal.

Over the course of the project’s existence, however, the black metal elements have faded by a considerable amount. Whereas Rain Upon the Impure was a blazing tornado of lo-fi riffage and furious blastbeats, albums such as Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite saw Meilenwald embrace much stronger doom metal leanings with layered clean vocals and more elaborate synth-arrangements. The even more radical additions to the modern iteration of the Ruins of Beverast sound were already teased on the Takitum Tootem EP in 2016 and are now fleshed out on Exuvia.

Opening with the title track, the album wastes no time on introducing us to the new Beverast sound, featuring an audio-sample of a chanted mantra that precedes some dreary, psychedelic guitar chords. Exuvia is a hulking composition spanning more than 15 minutes of swelling guitar-riffs and pounding drums, featuring female clean vocals and even some opera singing towards the end of the track.

At all times, the songwriting on Exuvia is extremely fluid, frequently exchanging vocal styles and atmospheric devices as Meilenwald blends slowly marching doom sections with mid-paced death metal and black metal parts with a touch of Rain Upon the Impure. The most violent example of this can be found at the end of the track The Pythia’s Pale Wolves. Following a section with ecstatic female vocals the song shifts into a stomping drumbeat fronted by Meilenwald’s gritty screams. The guitars break loose into furious riffing, propelled by Meilenwald’s signature-style blastbeats. Eerie synths creep in towards the end and drown out the rest of the music. The most outstanding feature used to craft the atmosphere on Exuvia are the bleak, psychedelic guitars that are deployed to great effect and can be found most prominently during the first half of the album.

In contrast, the additional instrumentation and musical experimentation is even more adventurous in the second half, featuring bagpipes, flutes, percussion and even some Summoning-style dungeon synth on the last song of the album, Takitum Tootem (Trance). The highlight of the second half of the album, however, is Towards Malakia (I’ve been told that Malakia is a greek slang-word for masturbation). The song was released to promote Exuvia and features what I consider to be Meilenwald’s most potent and proficient doom metal to date. Starting off with some flutes, shakers and more samples of chanted mantras, backed by unsettling synths the song soon transitions into a section that features what sounds like a sitar, evoking a middle-eastern flair. As the song progresses, Meilenwald introduces a trudging drumbeat fronted by increasingly more elaborate layers of wailing guitars, supported by creepy synths. The track sways for a while as if in a trance before it unleashes the most cathartic black metal section to be found on this album.

Despite how well written and captivating Exuvia is however, it can definitely get a bit overwhelming at times. Meilenwald does a great job of incorporating all the new instruments and influences into his sound but it does end up being a bit too eclectic for its own good, leaving the songs outstanding on their own but a little unfocussed as a full package.

Regardless of that Meilenwald shows exceptional skill in arranging the various aspects of this album. The songs on Exuvia are refreshing and effortlessly fuse new influences with the virtues of previous Ruins of Beverast releases, creating an album that is sinister and murky but also tranquil and meditative. What emerged from this transformation is Meilenwald in his most impressive and creative form, making Exuvia his best album to date that once more solidifies The Ruins of Beverast as one of the most notable projects in modern metal.

Attribution: https://www.noisevortex.com/reviews/the-ruins-of-beverast-exuvia/

2017 was a good year for metal it seems. As well as a strong set of releases from some well-established acts, the mask had finally slipped from certain ‘post’ variants of extreme metal, and many were ready to take music seriously again. ‘Exuvia’ was one such ambitious work, and serves as a reminder of the power of composing music, as opposed to shoving disparate styles together and calling it innovation, and then playing the contrarian when all the traditionalists get angry about it, and then claiming you’re just subverting what it means to be metal and you’re not interested in the rantings elitists, something something something, Thurston Moore Justin Broadrick.

Ahem, aaaanyway, ‘Exuvia’. What makes it such a special album? Well, anyone familiar with the career of The Ruins of Beverast to date will have charted his development from an idiosyncratic atmospheric black metal format into a sort of doom metal version of the same. The interesting thing about ‘Exuvia’ is the parsimony of riffs when contrasted with the overall variety and fullness of the album from moment to moment. How is this achieved? Well, the whole thing works like a trance or meditation. But unlike my man Ildjarn, TROB make full use of drums and their ability to add texture and depth (especially in doom metal), and to change the very nature of how a riff is received. The production enhances this with the toms and bass drum coming through full and thick.

The other more obvious technique to stretch out these simple yet well crafted riffs is the tasteful layering of other influences atop this. One can hear elements of Dead Can Dance, of pagan influences a-lor Wardruna or Heilung, and of course some classic prog rock leanings as well. Of course, frugality is key to maintaining the impact of these elements throughout the album’s hour plus runtime. This brings us to the real key to this album’s success, the structure itself. It may be basic, built on a simple journey with a beginning, middle and an end, with tension and release worked throughout the middle, but sometimes the plainest of canvasses can give rise to the most powerful of artistic statements.

When mastery of the technical craft is in place, and allows these musicians to skilfully layer so much instrumentation atop one another, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to the complexity of the compositions themselves. A simple build and release, or the gradual building of atmospheres atop a simple refrain will be all that is required to achieve the desired impact. There is a fluidity to the music, it ebbs and flows with varying degrees of intensity such that the direction of travel is allowed to unfold slowly, gradually, without the need for the most intricate of compositions.

‘Exuvia’ is a masterclass in executing an idea. It is stylised and ambitious, and every one of the many elements put to work are dropped into the mix perfectly.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

Germany’s The Ruins of Beverast is a project whose relative lack of notoriety, even among some of the most dedicated extreme metal followers, is truly baffling. With Beverast’s now five full-length releases on Ván Records spanning more than a decade, Alexander von Meilenwald’s creation has weathered the test of time as one of the more consistent yet innovative underground metal projects in existence.

Von Meilenwald’s work has typically featured a seamless marriage of black and doom metal - Unlock the Shrine and Rain Upon the Impure err slightly more on the side of the former whereas Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite and Blood Vaults - The Blazing Gospel of Heinrich Kramer fall more toward the latter. All releases have also heavily incorporated experimental elements in the way of ambient sounds (which occasionally hint at industrial influences), sampled film monologues, and spoken word. Von Meilenwald has also executed his take on the concept album with unusual effectiveness - themes like the literary work of a medieval church inquisitor, or the Biblical flood’s formative effect on the outcome of mankind. This is deeper stuff than we find on the average black metal record, to be sure.

Exuvia is no less profound of a work. Similarly ingenious in concept and massive in scope, the epic 67 minute opus lyrically navigates a feverish, hallucinogen-induced tour of the darker and more conflicted corners of Greek mythology, guided and enhanced sonically by Native American instruments, chants, and superlatively evil blackened doom metal riffage. Production-wise, Exuvia strays a bit from the most recent couple of Beverast releases, with overall slicker sounding production and a more evenly balanced, compressed mix. This is especially noticeable in the drum mix, which is pleasing but loses a bit of its natural sound and punch as a result of Exuvia seeming more heavily compressed.

The musicality of von Meilenwald’s riff writing itself has never been better, and his tried-and-true technique of weaving powerfully sludgy, doom-laden riffs in and around eerie, droning clean guitar parts and ferociously driving black metal strumming is perhaps at its most synergistic on Exuvia. Each track builds from an atmospheric introduction to at least one (though often several subsequent) crucial musical peaks. Some of Beverast’s absolute heaviest moments ever can be found in the album’s opener, and the subsequent “Surtur Barbaar Maritime”. The climax of “Maere (On a Stillbirth’s Tomb)” is one of the most gut wrenching moments in recent extreme metal memory. “Towards Malakia” feels like the crucial point of the album itself - the point of peak intensity after which things plateau off a bit and the album closes with the slow, cathartic “Takitum Tootem! (Trance)”. Every one of these songs, however, is an epic journey in and of itself and as with all Beverast releases, this one warrants a few uninterrupted listens to fully immerse yourself.

Everyone knows the glory of German power metal and the ferocity of German thrash. They are tried and true. They even have a great folk metal scene. The one style that seems to have eluded the Germans over the years is black metal. Waldgefluster have a decent following but they are one of two bands who have managed to break through. The other is the highly original brainchild of Alexander von Meilenwald, The Ruins of Beverast. Exuvia is their fifth album of atmospheric black/doom greatness, which is being released on Cinco de Mayo through Van Records.

Exuvia opens with a repeating atmospheric guitar melody that chills the listener to the bone. Slowly, the seriously crushing riffs come in, setting the tone for a very dark and very intense album. The riffs are played at a tempo that is the very definition of plodding, even when the drums are going full black metal mode. This makes for an interesting contrast but when the riffs are backed by slow, steady drum beats, the music becomes truly soul-crushing. Then the guitar leads come in on top and the drums speed up again but to a much different cadence. Instead of going into black metal fury, the drums launch into a Native American cadence. To finish off the 15+ minute title track, Meilenwald throws in very atmospheric chanting as if to call forth ancient spirits for a great cleansing. This seems only fitting given that an exuvia is actually a leftover exoskeleton from an animal who has molted, which is a form of cleansing for them.

As per usual with The Ruins of Beverast, much of this album relies on soul-crushing riffs with a dark, brooding atmosphere. There is precious little of the traditional tremolo picking on this album, which seems to give the band more freedom in their songwriting. Meilenwald’s guitar melodies on here are chilling but also slightly pleasant, as if to give the listener a glimmer of hope for the future of this twisted world. There is a ton of variation on this album, especially in the drumming. His range as a drummer provides an extra gut punch of doom on “The Pythia’s Pale Wolves,” while also returning to the Native American war dance theme that permeates this album (even the album cover has a Native American vibe). Toward the end of the track, he launches into a bout of pure, unadulterated black metal fury with blast beats and double kick, accented by echoed death growls and the sound of howling wolves. This goes on for almost two minutes before the track fades into dark carnival-esque keyboards with a layer of noise and howling wolves in the background. It is no accident that every track on Exuvia ends in a similar fashion, creating a strong buildup as mankind wages a titanic struggle against the ancient cleansing spirits.

The recurring Native American theme gets stronger and more prevalent over the course of the album. “Towards Malakia” opens with a sharp flute note and an actual Native American war chant along with a cymbal crescendo before unleashing monolithic riffs with a slightly cleaner guitar tone. Meilenwald’s vocals on this track are excellent and diverse, using his tortured screams to add a sense of pain to the music and his cleans for a sense of hope. The tracks ends the way it began as mankind has finally lost their epic struggle against the spirits. The resolution comes in the album’s closer, “Takitum Tootem! (Trance).” Unlike its predecessors, it does not contain any faster, more traditional black metal sections. It still possesses the dark atmosphere and tortured vocal aesthetics the band is known for but it sounds closer to a doom metal inspired Native American war chant than anything else. There is a reason for this. Having lost the war, mankind ceases to exist and the world is inhabited only by natural beings like wolves.

All told, this is an incredibly complex album that is difficult to digest, especially the first time around. However, its complexity and difficulty is part of what makes it so outstanding. There are so many elements present on this album and though the Native American percussion may be off-putting to some, it fits beautifully with the rest of the soundscape that The Ruins of Beverast have created on Exuvia. You can feel every bit of emotion present in these songs as the album really benefits from being recorded in a professional studio. Look for this to be toward the top of many year-end lists come December.

- originally written for The Metal Observer