The Ruins of Beverast
Rain Upon the Impure

You who first cast the stone
Are you adorned with wings?
How could you silently suffer
The sight of your dreams' wreckage?

Creature...
Your harvest is poor
Your soul bleeds
Your eyes won't ever see

When the bread is broken
Wounds are nailed into your palms...

Solo project of Alexander von Meilenwald, former member of Nagelfar (a German black metal band that disbanded in 2002), "Rain Upon the Impure" is an album hard to digest, not in a bad way, mind you, but because it falls into the "atmospheric/doom metal" category, a combination that is certainly not like listening to a nice little rock song to happily hum along to on days when we feel good about ourselves. The lyrics appear very complex right from the start, filled with metaphors and concepts that are not easy to decipher. The themes are those of darkness, death, and war. Listening to this album is like a slow descent into hell, not the one described by good old Dante Alighieri (no offense intended). No, here we are talking about something much darker, something of which even evil itself would be proud.

Dark atmospheres, voices that seem to come from another dimension, a use of drums that is sometimes suffocating, other times slow, almost marking every moment of listening to this album. Indeed, our concept of time, while listening to the album, aside from its actual duration of a good one hour and twenty minutes, seems to distort. Some songs seem never-ending, like an agony destined to last forever (try listening to "Soul of the Incestuous" for example, and then let me know). While the beginning of the album might have been somewhat "cheerful," towards the end the album becomes increasingly darker, with a distortion of guitars and atmospheres that seem to lead us into the last circles of hell (Dante's, if you prefer). The title track is a typical example, but as I said, the entire album remains consistently at these levels, never allowing us a moment of respite. Were you perhaps hoping to catch your breath? I'm sorry.

The comparison with other bands, like the various "Burzum" or "Darkthrone," could obviously be difficult, but without going too far into mentioning these "giants" of the black metal scene, I found this album to be a work of good level, also because the very concept of a solo project has always fascinated me. I mean, doing everything alone and doing it very well must mean something, right? Moreover, once again, an album that seems almost forgotten, or maybe, it's just me who has been listening to albums unknown to the general metal scene lately.

Listening to a set of tracks like these, twice over, might seem crazy, yet on both occasions, I've felt an inner peace, one of those sensations that only a few albums can give you and that make you yell "masterpiece" (even if you might keep it to yourself, especially if you see that the album, meanwhile, is looked down upon by most people). I sincerely admit that I didn't quite appreciate, or perhaps didn't quite understand, the use of the voice in its "clear" form during some moments of the album, but it certainly isn't an element that makes me frown that much..

The end of our journey is completed in the last track, made of rage, infernal atmospheres, distorted riffs. Our path seems to have truly come to an end and nothing awaits us but the absolute evil, or perhaps we just have to wait for the rain to fall on our impurity?