### The Ruins Of Beverast: Blood vaults - the blazing gospel of Heinrich Kramer

#### 13/04/14 || The Duff

The Ruins of Beverast is a one-man band and if you know anything about one-man bands it’s that they sound like one-man bands; Catacombs and Insidious Decrepancy spring to mind – there is a lack of variation on such records, you get the idea that the vision of the music comes from one mind alone as it has a ‘planned’ feel to it – bands like Spawn of Possession, Decapitated, Opeth are pretty much solely operated by one member, but in bands consisting of just one member the results appear even more linear without any external input whatsoever.

This guy here has already come under some repute for his last album under the same moniker, the 2009 effort “Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite”. Alexander von Meilanwald incorporates Swedodeath and hammonds? Church organs? Something mystic into his brand of funeral doom, and the result is polarising – on the one hand, some of the despair and menace evoked on this record is some of the best the sub-genre has to offer, and on top of a very lush production and stunning artwork, we have very unique touches as mentioned the synth and then also the choir/Viking chants and the vocals sounding like a whispering bullfrog or uncle Wilfred and a dark place.

On the other we unfortunately have these HUGE compositions with a very limited vocabulary – the ‘layers’ of the music are all in the guitar and vocal effects, the riffs are often very simple (from doom to Entombed, Swedodeath), sparsely overlaid and repeated far too many times with just drum beats for variation, and for a man who takes on all responsibilities, Alexander is an average musician, especially quite a lazy drummer.

With some of these cuts very ambitiously surpassing the ten minute mark, the ‘one-man-project-syndrome’ takes yet another victim, as someone could have very easily remarked that half of Ruins of Beverast’s downfall lies in the misguided passion, a record that is swamped in never truly changing pace despite its very many adornments that should by all means be taking the funeral doom sub-genre forward.

- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Ván Records
- Website: The Ruins of Beverast Facebook
- Band
- Alexander von Meilenwald: all instruments, vocals

- Tracklist
- 01. Apologia
- 02. Daemon
- 03. Malefica
- 04. Ornaments on Malice
- 05. Spires, the Wailing City
- 06. A Failed Exorcism
- 07. Trial
- 08. Ordeal
- 09. Monument