THE RUINS OF BEVERAST - Blood Vaults - The Blazing Gospel of Heinrich Kramer (Cryptae Sanguinum – Evangelium Flagrans Henrici Institoris)

Genre: Black/Doom Metal

Label: Ván Records

Rating: 6.5/10

The first track, “Apologia,” is an ambient track with deeply growled vocals over the synthesiser. The second track, “Daemon,” starts off quietly, with a vocal part that has a tremolo effect applied to it, sharply clipping it out. Around 1:15 it picks up in pace. At 2:06 is a riff that is particularly memorable and catchy. At roughly 3:45 is a doomy riff with constant palm-muted downstrokes that is pleasantly dark. Shortly thereafter, it returns to the doom verse. The outro features an organ that dies, and leaves solely the drums. This segues into the third track, “Malefica.”

“Malefica” starts off with a fantastic clean arpeggio. This is my favourite track from the album. After a while, two tracks of vocals come in, one of which has heavy phaser applied to it, both of them clean singing though. Simple bassline and drums behind it. Then the heavy guitars come in and turn the mood into something contemplative, morose. This is followed by a bleak clean guitar riff and equally so on the distorted guitar. The distorted one eventually starts tremolo picking its part, and adds a sense of urgent despair to the riff. When it repeats later on, there is even a blastbeat section which drives it home more.

Song four, “Ornaments on Malice,” starts with clean guitar, but quickly turns into a distorted tremolo riff. It is, as the title suggests, maleficent sounding. There are eventually clean accents to the distorted guitar. At 3:38 it slows down to clean guitar and organ, with bass backing it up. At roughly 4:25 the distorted guitar comes back in. The distorted guitar goes until the end of the song. Number five, “Spires, The Wailing City,” starts with a simple clean riff. Tremoloed vocals come in (this band sure seems to love phaser and tremolo...a bit too much). At around the 2:00 mark, a track of distorted guitar comes slowly in. At 4:20 it takes a decidedly moody, doom approach, and has some interesting bends. Around 6:55 a killer drum pattern is introduced, with a solid riff over it. This gives over to a classically doom riff. This is interspersed with a tremolo riff. This is played until approximately 12:50, when the music fades out.

Track six is called “A Failed Exorcism” and is immediately very much modern doom; however, this soon converts to a Black Metal number, as the guitar goes tremolo and the drums catch up. The guitar at 2:52 is certainly mournful. It speeds up, but it doesn't lose any of the angst inherent to the riff. Around the 1/3-finished mark, clean vocals can be heard. At this point, the song goes towards Black Metal again, speed-wise. It makes its way back around to the doominess all over again, though. This song is a constant switch between Black and Doom Metal. At about the 2/3-finished mark, it cuts to the original clean riff and doom riff subsequent to that. The closing riff is dark, and is sung over cleanly briefly until the fade-out/feedback.

Track seven, “Trial,” features a chorus singing, with some growled vocals over it. Distorted guitars come in, and slow, march-like drums are put to it. Some mixed up and garbled vocals come in later, kind of in a confused manner. This carries out the song. Number eight, “Ordeal,” starts with fast guitar and drums. At the 1:00 mark, clean female vocals come in over the minimalistic guitar riff.

The final track, “Monument,” starts off with clean guitars, and low growls. It isn't until 3:35 that the heavy guitars come in. They still maintain the doom nature of the song... for a few seconds, and then it becomes mid-tempo, with double bass-drum action, but then slows back down to doom level. As it turns out, the song, as do most on the album, constantly switches between doom and Black Metal. At 8:00 it returns to the beginning clean section and then unleashes a new, emotive riff which consists of higher notes.

Overall, a fairly disappointing album. Tracks two and three, especially three, save this album, because otherwise it is easily forgotten. There are multiple formats of this available for you to buy, which you can do here.