The Ruins Of Beverast - Foulest Semen Of A Sheltered Elite review
| Band: | The Ruins Of Beverast |
| Album: | Foulest Semen Of A Sheltered Elite |
| Style: | Black metal, Doom metal |
| Release date: | September 11, 2009 |
| Guest review by: | VIG |
01. I Raised This Stone As A Ghastly Memorial
02. Alu
03. God's Ensanguined Bestiaries
04. Mount Sinai Moloch
05. Transcending Saturnine Iericho Skies
06. Kain's Countenance Fell
07. The Restless Mills
08. Theriak - Baal - Theriak
09. Blood Vaults (II - Our Despots Cleanse The Levant)
10. Arcane Pharmakon Messiah
11. (untitled) [Vinyl bonus]
Black Metal outfit The Ruins Of Beverast need no special introduction. The great Alexander von Meilenwald (formerly of Nagelfar) has been making masterpiece after masterpiece for over 13 years now. But he really reached the peak with Foulest Semen Of A Sheltered Elite.
Now incorporating more doom elements than ever, RoB has a new sound, with a MUCH much more polished production. Adding a lot more clean vocals, which I enjoy, that add to that more doomier sound. It also features pretty great guitar solos. This album is a huge improvement over Rain Upon The Impure. While a very different album, you can't deny that this is another masterpiece.
Dreaded album this is, without a pause from the craziness. For me the standout tracks would be 09. Blood Vaults (II - Our Despots Cleanse The Levant) & 01. I Raised This Stone As A Ghastly Memorial. These songs really define the sound of this band and album. With intense solos, deep clean vocals and of course those black metal shrieks and growls, this is what Ruins Of Beverast is. While this album features more interludes than the previous ones, it doesn't stop the flow of each track to the next.
If you don't know what to expect, this is kind of like if Xasthur and Monolithe had a baby in my opinion, the perfect combo of black and doom.
If you liked Alex's previous works, you should try this out.
If you didn't, you should still hear this, as it is a much cleaner album.
If you did, you may have mixed feelings about this album, or just love it as much as I do.
And if your a fellow doom lover like me, but haven't had a thing for black metal, this is the album that will make you love BM.
While some think this was a bad direction for RoB, I would say it was absolutely for the better.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 10 |
| Songwriting: | 10 |
| Originality: | 8 |
| Production: | 9 |
Written by VIG | 27.02.2017
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
Rating:
9.0
9.0
|
Rating: 9.0 |
He has done it again. Alexander Von Meilenwald has put out another brilliant Black metal opus. I am now fully convinced that this man is a musical genius. I know reviewers need to maintain a sense of objectivity, but we also need to recognize brilliant music whenever it slaps us in the face and have the balls to spread the word. And well, this is us fucking wreckingball. Read more ›› |
Comments
Comments: 3
Visited by: 16 users
| Auntie Sahar Drone Empress Posts: 5989  |
Pretty good review... reflective of my early style a lot though, which was good, but rife with some stuff I'm glad I cleaned up in the future  For constructive criticism only  1. Avoid addressing your reader directly, and if you do tell them more about what they're going to like about the album than you make absolutist statements like "you can't deny," "you wouldn't believe," etc. How you did this at the end of this review with the "if you...." lines was much better. 2. Try not to jump too radically from one idea to the next. Look at your second paragraph here. You mention clean vocals, cleaner production, guitar solos, and Rain Upon The Impure all in this same paragraph. It is good that your ideas on this album are this diverse, but to tighten your writing it would be better to expand upon them more in individual paragraphs rather than cramming them all together. You will get better with this technique with time. 3. Be very selective about the albums you give near perfect scores, otherwise you might give off an "if everything is good, nothing is" type impression with your writing. Very few albums are really deserving of 9 - 10 range, as we've both discussed. I know this is an older review and you've learned from this one, but still.... save it for the ones that are either really close to your heart or that you can just tell exhibit songwriting, originality, and production better than like 95% of what else they're up against. For the record, Foulest definitely is 9 - 10 range in my book, so I don't disagree with this review honestly... just saying, be selective about how frequently you throw out so high a score in the future. Hope ya get something out of all that Yung Solja. Will be reading/commenting on your others more in the next few days.
---- I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go. ~ II. VII
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| VIG Account deleted |
VIG
Account deleted Written by Auntie Sahar on 23.02.2018 at 21:15 Thanks for the tips.  I decided to not put ratings in my reviews anymore (except for Mournspire), basically because I read user jupitreas's Personal Text (I see that guy hasn't been very active on here, but I saw him and clicked on his profile) Also, re-listening to this album for the first time since a little after this review, it is pretty good! I wouldn't give it a 9.8 though, a 9.0 at most
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| Auntie Sahar Drone Empress Posts: 5989 |
Written by [user id=159927] on 25.02.2018 at 21:50 Yeah, jupitreas was a goody for the concept of "no ratings because giving N/A makes people focus more on the content of the review and avoids unnecessary rating debates." I agree with him, but I take a different approach personally. Dunno if I've explained it you already, but... I really only give out N/A when I feel the album is so atypical that it just defies rating altogether. It's damn near impossible for reviewers to avoid comparing music to what else is out there already, so we can't really say "stop comparing X band to Y band" too much... it's rather inevitable. So when I hear something that's just forward thinking and baffling as all fuck, I can't really say "oh boy, you're doing sludge great, you get an 8!" or whatnot, because the sounds being displayed just can't be compared to much else out there, so there's less of a standard to fall back on to set them against for rating. I've given N/A to stuff like Sunn O))), Blut Aus Nord, Aderlating, Botanist, and some others over the years, and that's basically my idea. Whether you agree with that or not, you're doing the good work for sure in checking out older reviews from retired Staff and Elites. Lot of good stuff out there that demonstrates lessons to be learned from, both on what to do and what not to do as well. Keep at it
---- I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go. ~ II. VII
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