foscor: meh. this is... nice enough but doesn't really grab me in any way. even the tracks i kinda like are still outclassed by a lot of similar stuff in the style. would rather just listen to alcest. not much else to say. ain't bad but i'll likely forget about this in a few months
the ruins of beverast: i think this is a bit too slow-paced and repetitive for its own good. track four is quite good, and track six, while fairly repetitive, is such a good riff that i don't really care. the rest... yeah, they're fine enough songs and i don't mind listening to this at all but they don't grab me so much. and this is one of the longer albums i got in my last batch of stuff but doesn't really feel like it earns its length, at least not entirely
shade empire: pretty cool symphonic death/black metal or whatever. i dig the sax that shows up in a few of the tracks too. i think the symphonic elements kind of overwhelm the metal in the mix & the metal itself would be kind of unmemorable on its own, but the songs all sound good, can't think of a track i dislike and nearly every track has something to make itself appealing, tracks 3 and 6 are maybe the most forgettable i guess but they're still solid? so yeah, cool stuff. bad album cover, but cool stuff