[2][3] The first steady lineup was established in 1995, when bass player Sveinn Hackelnberg joined and Jander replaced vocalist Smaug.
[5] In late 1998, Sveinn Hackenberg departed for personal reasons and left the lyrical concept of the Srontgorrth story.
The recordings for the concept album had coinciding setbacks, which resulted in the departure of Jander, who therefore only contributed some parts of the vocals.
[1] After the release, Lacher ended Kettenhund Records[1] because he lacked time to go on with the label and was a bit demoralised by "rip offs" in the scene,[9] so the band had to look for a new one.
They recorded the self-produced 2-track MCD Garzweiler II which was published as an exclusive Wód-Ván release[1] and limited to one copy.
[2] Rock Hard journalist Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann called them the "kings of the Westwall", "legendary protagonists" and "by far the most important German black metal band of the so-called second generation" whose three albums "let the scene […] explode".
[3] He, Zingultus and Hackelnberg founded the Wòd-Ván, a group of black metal fans mainly (but not exclusively) from the region around Aachen.
But he believes the band already distanced themselves from that on Hünengrab im Herbst; the album "did not sound as black metal did at that time".
[12] The production, which was "extremely fat and punchy for black metal conditions",[8] is considered "an important building stone for the success of this album".
The development to the point of founding The Ruins of Beverast merely strengthened me in my decision to create music of immense gloom and trepidation, surreal and dark.
[2] The band considered some statements of the black metal scene hilarious and distanced themselves from them, which earned them respect by some and hatred by others and led "to bizarre, ambivalent insults […].
[12] According to Legacy journalist Johannes Paul Köhler, the second album, Srontgorrth, dealt with the total solar eclipse in 1999,[2] while Meilenwald explained it as the fictional story of an individual freed from the prison of the unconscious and striving to reclaim his past, understand the present and look into the future.
According to Meilenwald, most people "may have realised by now that the political content in black metal contradicts the original idea and has a weak ideological fundament".