Back for a seventh full-length album a long five years since we were graced with the divisive gothic-drenched The Thule Grimoires, and Alexander von Meilenwald continues to tinker and toy with the various influences that run in his blood to create a new mini-masterpiece, albeit a step down from previous glories. The Ruins of Beverast are as much a doom project as a black metal project today, over twenty years since the one-man-band emerged from the primordial underground, plain from the opening nine-minute title track that is clean sung only! It's not pop music but is a total embrace of gothic doom with surprising subtlety to its atmospheric heft. The following, more straightforward Day of the Poacher reassuringly returns to the expected dry snarls, blackened guitar lines atop at first d-beats and later blastbeats, speeding up and growing in intensity as it flies along.

Breaks in the action for Exuvia-esque percussion and chanting are highly effective, as atmospheric in their own way as the following Cathedral of Bleeding Statues and its woozy post-punk-influenced riffing between bursts of almost My Dying Bride-esque doom. Those familiar with the previous few albums will be on much firmer ground here, although the band seem to be lacking in any of the epic peaks that have ensured the previous likes of The Tundra Shines and Anchoress in Furs stuck in the head with their devastating hooks worked so cleverly in. As an Exuvia worshipper above all in the Ruins discography, this is the section of the album that gripped hardest on initial listens, suggesting that a slight disappointment overall would be the conclusion of this review...

Yet von Meilenwald knows his craft and the ensuing second half of the album provides enough grandiosity to keep the flames burning in the heart of the faithful. Highlights come frequently, not least in the prog-tinged instrumentation of Babel, You Scarlet Queen! which keeps the intensity at a peak all through its seven-minute plus running. And the tension is kept high as the following Last Theatre of the Sea initially switches to acoustic strums before some of the most aggressively barking vocals on the album come in atop a churning rumble that builds gradually into a blackened tornado, albeit not before pausing for a return to acoustic and percussive eye of the storm, more clean vocals giving an almost Type O Negative slant to the band's doomy manoeuvrings.

Which would all be impressive enough for this near hour-long album as it is, yet we still have finale The Carrion Cocoon in all its thirteen minute-plus glory to contend with! It initially returns to the gothic doom of the opener, albeit initially in a more experimental, almost ambient manner with fragmented backing sounds before building into a fragile yet pounding prog doom epic with an especially complex and gripping drum performance (with evidence to the otherwise lacking, we presume by von Meilenwald himself!) and some lovely lead guitars, holds your attention throughout. In a way this is the most experimental and outré piece on the album, which is, sad to say, a step down from previous releases and their shifts into new territory. Newcomers will still be entranced, yet longer-term fans will find it easy to see this as something of a repetition of previous glories instead of a new Ruins of Beverast masterpiece.

Even trying to criticise this album, a highly enjoyable and undoubtable piece of modern art, does feels unfair, it must be said. Although this is the shortest album from the project to date, it erects its constructions of blackened doom so expertly and effectively that you can't help but enjoy it for what it is. Measuring up, sure, this is certainly the weakest album since Blood Vaults if not throughout the whole catalogue - perhaps it will grow with time, von Meilenwald deserves our trust at this point and your reviewer is happy to grant it. After all, a weak album from The Ruins of Beverast is still a lot better than a superb album from anyone else, and there's more than enough here to sink your teeth into. Heartily recommended, then, even if nitpickers may see it as the dullest jewel yet in the project's gem-encrusted corona!