“To sleep, perchance to dream“ is a part of Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquy. “Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them.” is a quote often attributed to Poe. Hell, even in the bible we find a quote about “sleep” in Psalm 127:2 “For he grants sleep to those he loves”. Why am I coming up with these quotes from various sources? Because the new The Ruins of Beverast record is called Tempelschlaf and it surely has the elements to be quoted by future generations!
Ministry. (Early) Paradise Lost. Current 93. Yellow Eyes. These might be the four cornerstones if you want to describe the new record by The Ruins of Beverast. One might even thing we get real Synth-Pop like Depeche Mode or some harsh Scandinavian masters from the 80s and 90s. The record shows Meilenwald once again delivering some of the most profound and well-articulated Black Metal songs you can hear wherever, whenever. Throughout his career – and TROB exists for more than 20 years already – he has done so, you will be hard-pressed to find a really disappointing record, and his seventh full-length proves this statement once more.
As soon as the opening title track hits, we are confronted with music that obviously and audibly transcends your normal genre limitations – while the drums are clearly tribal infused, we get some some Industrial Shoegaze white noise walls which are later on accompanied and broken some clean guitars. The vocals on this track (and several others) are clearly Darkwave akin and show a great understanding of how to sound Post-Punk’ishly haunting and yet like subliminal clean Black Metal vocals. When the whole rhythm section goes into a kind of mechanic Blastbeat segment the drums become a little brighter, thus making the whole song sound a bit broader in its diversity. And this diversity is one of the key characteristics to note on this record – on the hand each track takes and gets exactly what it needs and often they also get enough of space time-wise to do so, the title track, for example, spans across 9:35 minutes. That doesn’t even make it the longest track on the record – which is the final track, ”The Carrion Cocoon” which leans even more towards the ghost and the grave that many of us associate with the coldness of Darkwave-synth-sounds. The heart-beating drum sounds push the track further and further into the Bifröst that the band took its name from. That the song features vocals much closer to Black Metal than the opener is a good trick of the trade, and that the blastbeats are only set on tornado but not on cyclone is surely no incident but a trademark of any good musician – give the song what it needs. Or what the whole album needs.
These songs are made to become the soundtrack of dreams – good or bad ones alike. They have a cinemascope quality to them and showcase a singer/songwriter who knows what he is doing and who has proven himself to do so for soon 23 years. The best thing about TROB in 2026? Meilenwald does not need to prove anything to anybody, not to you and not to himself! That surely is a great thing if it results in seven songs like these and nearly a minute of exquisite Industrial Black Metal!
To end this review the way it started, I want to quote Leonardo da Vinci who, presumably, once said that “A well spent day brings happy sleepy.“ Well, according to that my days spent with Tempelschlaf will surely bring some amazing sleep. A great start for the new Black Metal year.
