Album Review: Caelestia – Revelations In Black
Reviewed by Oli GOnzalez
Describing themselves as a fusion of the Gothenburg inspired death melodic death metal sound and the North American death metal act, this sounds like an interesting mix indeed! Working with producer Zack Ohren should surely help capture the death metal sound, given his experience of working with Immolation and Six Feet Under!
The album opens up with a rather tranquil acoustic guitar passage in the shape of ‘La Morte Amoureuse’. You know that the tranquillity won’t last long though…and it doesn’t! Immediately, you’re slapped in the face with the forceful introduction of ‘Buried’. This features an aggressive choppy guitar led passage, distorted and venomous but not too overloading and retaining melody. The sound is more complex than one may anticipate, given the interluding melodies of this rhythm guitar, the distinctly clanging of the bass locking in tightly with the drums, and the majestically soaring guitar leads. Songs like ‘Jutland’ and ‘Fall of The Demon King’ seem to explore more ambient clean guitar tones and moods in the outset before progressing to more old school death metal timbres. The structure of each feeling more progressive and non-canonical in their approaches. Far from predictable…which is only a great thing!
The acoustic guitars return in the introduction to ‘The Slopes Of Tenmohkuzan’, demonstrating that beauty can shine in darkness. Caelestia seem happy to stay outside the typical boundaries of extreme metal here, with the aura being more of an epic power metal ballad, just with the fierce growled vocals rather than a squirrel on helium higher pitched style clean vocal when power metal comes to mind! In fact, let’s talk about the vocals. Pantelis has a consistently fierce presence and commanding mid-range growl, or more demonic gutturals! They make for an interesting juxtaposition against the more melodic and opulent guitars in the background. Guitars that seem to have very little synth or background enhancements, making the sound feel raw and unfiltered.
With that being said, ‘Five Unicorns And A Pearl’ throws some cinematic soundscapes in for good measure. Especially with the haunting choir chants in the beginning. Well, not really the beginning, this is the entire song. All 1 minute and 25 seconds of it. Where does this fit with the overall narrative of the album? Maybe just there to act as some respite. If so, that’s valid and serves this purpose well.
How much have Amon Amarth influenced the bands sound? A question to ponder once you’ve listened to ‘Reflection Of The Beast’ and ‘Dead Eternal’.
Clearly, Caelestia aren’t afraid to experiment with the traditional confines of extreme metal. They offer something fresh and unique to the extreme metal world without it feeling like a half baked Frankenstein of genres; everything feels logical and held together nicely. “Revelations In Black” though likely won’t make a dent in the overly stacked scene. Though for what it is, it’s a mighty fine record and one to be admired. For fans of At The Gates, Wolfheart, and Blackbraid.
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