It's amazing to think that Alexander von Melinwald has been ceaselessly pushing the boundaries of what black metal can do with The Ruins of Beverast for well over twenty years now. Hell, it's only fairly recently that the genre as a whole has really started to catch up with him, and even that is more bands working to emulate what he's been doing rather than build off it, because how the hell can you do that when he never stopped doing it himself to begin with? Each album has been a one-man crusade to explore different facets of a core sound of churning, doom-laden malevolence that no other black metal band really has, and while not every attempt has yielded first-rate results, it's never been for lack of effort or becoming too self-referential. Many will rightfully point to the first three albums as the height of this project, but I'm of a mind that The Thulean Grimoire was as close as any mortal could hope to even compare, so I was hopeful that we may see another trilogy of unequaled brilliance heralded by this release. As it turns out, that's not the case, but it's close enough that I'm not too broken up about it.

Templeschlaf, at its most basic, is focused on taking the dense, often gothic atmosphere and increased use of clean chanting of The Thulean Grimoire and doubling down on it while streamlining the songwriting and injecting psychedelic influences into it all. Now, there have been many instances of psychedelia being incorporated in black metal since the late '90s, but as always, Melinwald is out of step with the rest of the genre and mixes it with everything the band has done so far to make something entirely his own. For how direct the songwriting has gotten, this is still dense and arcane material that is difficult to really penetrate in a few listens, but it's able to grab you all the same with an absorbing feel for atmosphere that's always been this project's greatest strength mixed with excellent drumming and a greater focus on guitar work than perhaps ever, with plenty of haunting melodies and fierce, sometimes gorgeous leads that lend a hookiness to the songs that never sacrifice depth or distracts from the mood.

All that said, I do think the compositions can stretch themselves a little thin, especially when they focus on straightforward blasting rather than expansive atmosphere. This is most notable on the advance single "Alpha Fluids", but there are sections like this peppered throughout that streamline things too much for their own good, and they generally risk taking you out of the mood. Still, songs like the surprisingly clean opening title track, the massive closer "The Carrion Cocoon", and the jaw dropping "Day of the Poacher" display all the genius we've come to expect at this point, and really, you go to these albums as a unified whole rather than individual tracks. Even at its weakest, Tempelschlaf remains a consistent journey through ancient ruins and antediluvian horror that only Melinwald can provide, and that alone makes it a strong contender for being among the best of a year that's only started. Another excellent and defiantly experimental work in the deranged canon of The Ruins of Beverast.