Reviews list for Ruins of Beverast, The - Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite (2009)

The Ruins of Beverast marathon #3: Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite

OK, it felt a little weird typing that title, but whatever.  From what I've heard and read, there's kind of a battle between various Beverest albums for "best one."  Obligatory Beatles comparison.  Now this guy only has six albums, but four of them are contenders: Unlock the Shrine, Rain Upon the Impure, Sheltered Elite and Exuvia.  I'm on the third of these, and I can't wait to see what happens next.  While the first album was great, the sophomore showed a noticeable improvement in quality, being less repetitive and just as weird.  I'm a bit surprised that I'm the first one here to review it, though, considering how big these guys are in the metal community.

This is the album that represents the beginning of RoB's shift from a black metal focus to a doom one.  As a result, the opener, I Raised This Stone as a Ghastly Memorial has a less black production level which is less busy and noisy. This is an excellent example of RoB's ability to produce epic tracks while changing things around.  As far as switching it up with various variations in a single song goes, this is likely his most consistent song in that regard.  Despite the variations in the first act, the backing blackened guitars and the psychedelic / funereal slow-paced solors test the patience slighty.  But a little patience during a vocal segment, and we're back to the sounds of the first act, appropriately so, as that first melody was so epic in its tame approach that it absolutely MUST NOT be forsaken to one act alone.  Our next track slams us with total black metal: God's Ensanguined Bestiaries.  Now this started out as a purely black metal track with very clear production, one that used melody to draw me in again.  So it remains catchy and dark, but doesn't do anything different until the third act, in which the instruments take a step back for clearer vocals to sing for a minute.  And then it goes back to what it was doing. In all respects, the instrumentation's fine.  But when you stand this album next to Ghastly Memorial or anything from the sophomore, it looks and feels kinda like a standard atmo-black track at first.  Thankfully there's at least a change in tempo during the midsection.  This one once again takes advantage of slow compositions during the solos to bring out the epic approach of the album rather than thrashing the fuck out of everything.  And as a guy who generally prefers thrashing the fuck out of everything, it's a very welcome change of pace.  I guess after all the craziness in the sophomore, the fans need something a little more simple.  So this may be the worst track on the album, but it totally works.

This is the point of the album where things were getting weirder.  Mount Sinai Moloch was up next.  I can appreciate the industrial black ambient intro.  Chances were the song wasn't gonna do that for its 12.5 minute runtime.  The intro lasts about a minute and a half before going into some straight up death doom with a slight funereal touch, relying on the sparseness of the instrumentation to deliver the goods until blackened riffs overtake the background, going back to the "blackened doom: that Wikipedia likes to tag this band with, and then back to the funeral doom.  So while the first two songs were a bit more tame than this, I finally get the song I've been waiting for: a multi-faceted and consistent adventure of unpredictability that acts as a testament to RoB's talents.  Right after that is more funereal behavior with Transcending Saturnine Iericho Skies,  Its approach is certainly metallic, but very soothing to the metal soul.  The song evolves into straightforward doom after the intro, just rocking its Sabbathian vibes for a couple verses before taking a 180 into black metal like it's nothing.  And this eventually evolves into the atmospheric side as synths bring out an almost heavenly backdrop for about twenty seconds before we instantly sink right back into the funereal guitars of the intro.  There is obviously nothing this song won't try, which means any suspicions of the album being made of overlong and repetitive songs is practically gone now.  In fact, the changes of pace get more and more frequent the more you dive into this song.

However, despite all these interesting turns, I've heard most of these tricks on the previous album.  I really needed one.  Thankfully, higher timbres of The Restless Mills did just that, going into the highest pitches of tremolo that RoB has picked this far.  This one's far more rooted in the slow atmospheres of metal than anything beforehand.  Unfortunately, the tremolo trick hadn't returned for a long time, but I had a strong atmosphere with some interesting effects in the background to make up for that.  It might not mix it up much until the last third, and I suppose that's fine after the last two tracks, but it doesn't quite have enough melody to go around, either, leaving an empty feeling despite the strengths.  Now Theriak - Baal - Theriak is where we REALLY get something new.  It starts with some maniacal laughing as an unintelligible growl is speaking, leaving me to believe the voice is saying something disgusting and funny while the voices laugh (On a side note, I know all four of Kenny's verses in each version of the South park theme).  Once the laughing is done, the percussions go headfirst into hardcore punk territory!  That's completely new for RoB.  The song switches between focus on atmosphere and melody while switching between growls and singing during this segment, but switches to a more dramatic monotone beat with its own mystic and ritualistic vibe before returning.  Once again, all these changes feel completely natural.  Right before the end of this track, we go into a much cooler and astral Sabbathian vibe, one that would likely make the stoners crazy.  Excellent inclusion before ending before going back into the speedy black guitars.

Alright, now after all the craziness I went through in RoB's catalog to get this far, it's time to talk about the final track of his third album.  Cool deep space synths and an audio sample, nice but been there.  Instances of a 60 BPM blackened rhythm accompanying it.  Improvement.  Evolves into its own focus for the synthesizers to empower, draws itself out while focusing on melody.  Clear vocals and vocal effects taking turns.  In its first two minutes it took several mutations on a very natural level.  This is an extremely psychedelic tune where RoB does a masterful job of just drawing people into its drug-induced black metal world, like the best tracks by Oranssi Pazuzu.  Almost halfway there, a stoner riff cuts out the astral vibes and goes right for pure metal solo for a couple of minutes before returning to some slow but intriguing blackened doom riff before ending in the same psychedelia that began it.  This is a whole new level of wild for RoB.

This album shows RoB at the top of his game, recycling older elements from the past album while increasing the doom influence and improving the production values.  This album is much more than the black doom album RYM has the audacity to tag it with.  This is a journey across the world that the combination of these two genres can explore without losing their identities.  I guess if I had to fault the album for anything, it would be that I heard some of these tricks on the last album, but I think I should forgive that since the primary focus of the album and the production quality are both very different.