Review by Rexorcist for Ruins of Beverast, The - Rain Upon the Impure (2006)
Ruins of Beverast marathon #2: Rain Upon the Impure
Our opener is the 13.5 minute epic 50 Forts Alone the Rhine. This would be his longest song released, so the chances of being totally monotonous were pretty high, unless BoR managed to keep it creative throughout. I noticed variations in production quality between clear sound effects and slightly fuzzy production for the guitars, while the vocals are right in the middle of the two. Nothing, however, gets in the way of each other, allowing these multiple elements to work in harmony while the unpredictability of The Mine is combined with the melodic charms of the earlier tracks on Unlock the Shrine, which makes this his best song so far. I had been curious for a couple years about the combination of fuzzy and clear production and how to properly utilize it. RoB answered my question, and I'm perfectly satisfied with the answer. Add the fact that this is probably the creepiest song of his so far, then I would even go as far as to say that this is one of the greatest metal songs I've ever heard.
Next is a SIXTEEN minute track: Soliloquy of the Stigmatized Shepherd. Damn... The song begins with a dirge of black doom that's more than eager to stomp you flat into the earth. The doom switches between the death and funeral brands, allowing Frohn to add sparce moments of black growls and guitar effects. These sparse moments aren't quite enough to make up for the otherwise lack in shifting behavior that the track is guilty of, as it has to compete with the previous song's astounding creativity. But at the halfway point, our percussion largely ceases for a moment, and the guitar effects become alien and otherworldly, playing at a rapid pace. The track then evolves into a war metal riff and blast. The percussions are a little drowned by the riff, but the atmosphere is hypnotic. We have a couple of minutes of this before the doom takes over again with a couple higher pitches and a more astronomical approach, and then goes back to black again with a slower but still energetic approach, which means our super-slow track is finally utilizing the creativity of the previous track despite its slightly overlong first half. What a way to save it. Now we just let the chanting and the psychedelic guitars take us away through the end. Kick back, enjoy the atmos.
Track 3 is 16 minutes as well, and I've got some pretty high hopes for this one as track two came back with some punches. Track two evolves into Blood Vaults with more weird sound effects, overtaking the guitars in both volume and focus. Now things are getting multi-dimensional, like I've been pulled into a Stephen King shadow world. This intro evolves into a very focused and melodic atmo-black track with the kind of aggression the album's been largely missing. It even takes a moment to give us the obligatory nerdy Vincent Price sample. For a while, the drums are hurt by the bad production, but after the sample they seem to be fixed, going at a perfect volume with the riff and some deep masculine choir singing. Now this change in production wasn't really an "artistic decision" that needed to be there, as the worse production on the first act of this song did more harm than good. But it's nice to have more balance back, and the melodies keep shifting with perfect consistency. So Once again we have a flaw in a track's beginning while the song gets better as it goes along.
And now for the THIRD sixteen minute track in a row: Soil of the Incentuous.
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SOILED IT! SOILED IT! SOILED IT!
Ahem, excuse me. Now for this track. It starts off with a standard black doom rhythm and riff, not really impressing me at first. But I had already decided to wait and see what it was going to do next. Once it upped the blackness, the rapid speed aggression brought more of its general evil out. it remains standard until another vocal sample leads us to a gothic section with industrial noises to bring us a totally new sound and direction that the album hasn't explored yet, and it feels perfectly fitting. But once again we're back to the plastic black metal after a couple minutes. This track shows RoB being much more serious about the black metal aspects than he was on the previous tracks.
After a creepy dark ambient track that does its job but fails to hold a candle to its brothers from Unlock the Shrine. This track shows RoB doing everything he can to make it an epic ending. Even anything vaguely related to doom is relying on bombast here, which has largely been missing from the album so far. Even when the industrial percussions return, everything is epic, loud and cinematic. A plethora of different vocal styles comes in to aid in every piece of this album from mutant chanting to choirs to demonic growls. I'd even say this is the second best song that I've heard him record so far.
I'm more than pleased with this sophomore effort. There are a couple small decisions that shouldn't have been made, and there are a lot of seriously artistic moments that draws me into every angle of the individual worlds each track explores. Rain Upon the Impure is proper black metal, but also acts as both a slow and fast cinematic exploration of what the darkness of black metal is capable of. No wonder this is RoB's most popular album, it's a tornado of perfectly evil melodies and vibes.