ALBUM REVIEW: Soul Diminished – Celestial Sanctuary

The old school death metal revival has been one of the biggest success stories within extreme music over the last handful of years. Thanks to a bountiful crop of new bands like BLOOD INCANTATION, WITCH VOMIT, TOMB MOLD and GATECREEPER to name but a few, alongside the veteran names still swinging hard, death metal is arguably in its strongest health in its history. With the vast majority of the revival being cemented in the United States and Canada, it is about high time we had some UK representation. Enter CELESTIAL SANCTUARY, who enter the ring armed with their debut record Soul Diminished.

CELESTIAL SANCTUARY waste no time in making their intent known as Rid The Gormless kicks off the debut record with an almighty bang as riffs of neck-snapping ferocity intertwine superbly with a hailfire of double bass kicks and vocalist Tom Cronin channels his inner John Tardy to spew guttural vocal snarls over the aural onslaught. Talk about an opening statement.

Its not all just a relentless barrage of buzz-saw guitars, double bass kicks and guttural vocal blasts though, CELESTIAL SANCTUARY are so much more than just another one dimensional old school worshipping death metal band. The title track, Soul Diminished, has splashes of heavy ASPHYX influence (particularly in the intro), and the riffing here is a particularly infectious earworm, Relentless Savagery adopts an almost hardcore sensibility in its composition which allows the band to be even more bludgeoning as a result and Wretched Habits is a multi-faceted monster of a song thanks a healthy variety of tempos and moods that twist and contort throughout the track’s duration. It’s moments like this that show the quality with the CELESTIAL SANCTUARY camp.

As Soul Diminished continues to unravel and present passage after passage of aural brutality, it becomes increasingly clear that the quality within the CELESTIAL SANCTUARY ranks is sky high, and this is all the more impressive given the fact the band only formed in late 2019. With it’s riffing emerging straight from the swamps, Suffer Your Sentience feels like it would sit comfortably on an OBITUARY album, Mass Extinction starts as a slow behemoth before exploding into full gear as an onslaught of rapid SLAYER-esque riffs combine effortlessly with relentless drumming from James Burke.

Yearn For The Rot turns things on its head entirely. Almost coming out of left field thanks to a more doomy sense of melody in the guitar department, the track feels more reserved compared to that which preceded it. But, the biggest benefit from this approach is that the riffs make a much more impactful connection and helps the song stand out as a clear highlight on the record. With this clear understanding of following the death metal template, which they excel at, alongside injecting enough fresh energy and splashes of experimentation into the mix, CELESTIAL SANCTUARY show across their debut that they are ravenously hungry and it bodes well for the future.

With Soul Diminished, CELESTIAL SANCTUARY are making a huge statement of intent, one in which intends to shift the battlegrounds of North America to home soil. The UK has never been a nation dominated by death metal (omitting the legendary BOLT THROWER and CARCASS of course), but with this monolithic slab of brutality, the Cambridge upstarts are ready to start a revolution. Arm yourself and brace yourself for battle, the New Wave of British Death Metal has arrived.

Rating: 9/10

Soul Diminished is set for release on March 26th via Church Road Records. 

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