THE RUINS OF BEVERAST — Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite (review)

THE RUINS OF BEVERAST — Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite album cover

Album · 2009 · Atmospheric Black Metal

4.5/5 · 2013-04-01
Wilytank

(Originally posted by me to Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives; http://www.metal-archives.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 that 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 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.

(92/100)