Ελληνικά
Last Updated on 12:16 AM by Giorgos Tsekas
Genre: Ritual Black Metal
Country: Germany
Label: Ván Records
Year: 2016
The Ruins Of Beverast is one the most unique, serious and effective black metal bands out there. They don’t appear often, but when they do, they have something sonorous to say. It has been 3 years of silence since the “Blood Vaults…” and it was about time for something new from them, but the release of this two song EP was a bit of surprise, since they have made only two splits in their career besides their full length releases.
A second surprise was the use of the exclamation mark in the title, especially when the cover depicting Jesus crossed with a wolf’s head and a snake going around him is so strong an image and also because the usage of this particular punctuation mark is not so common in extreme metal, remember the last Morbid Angel record and all the mockery they received because of that.
As far as the musical content goes, there is actually only one new song, “Takitum Tootem!” which after a small intro with something like a prayer along with sounds of religious paraphernalia in an unknown dialect, a voodoo like beat starts soon to be accompanied by Alex’s deep cavernous voice. Vocal effects, several percussion sounds and disturbing noises on the back comprise a dead serious atmosphere that could be the soundtrack of an ancient War Dance.
The b-side is a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun”, which is the prototype of everything ritualistic and trippy. And of course Ruins tried to do it even more ritualistic and even more trippy with vocal effects, disturbing keyboards and the same shamanic background as in the previous song.
This is a unique release for the band, the content cannot be characterized black metal, but it is as strong, as dark and as evocative as everything they have done before. Even though I don’t think this is a sign of a radical shift in their musical direction, it certainly raises the levels of eagerness with which I am awaiting the new album. The only question mark is that exclamation mark…
5/6
