ALBUM REVIEW: Mysterium I – Celestial Season
Death-doom is a style of music that seems to be littered with talented and imaginative bands who never seemed to realise their full potential, especially when it comes to bands who formed within the primordial days of the genre. Perhaps no band epitomises this ascertain more than Dutch septet CELESTIAL SEASON; from their formation in 1991, this band were producing music that should have placed them in the same conversation as the likes of the Peaceville Three and fellow Netherlands act THE GATHERING in terms of being pioneers of the genre, but this, unfortunately, never occurred.
Perhaps a marked shift in style towards a more stoner metal orientated sound towards the close of the 90s, and the decade-long hiatus between 2001 and 2011, lessened the impact they had in the eyes of some listeners, but nonetheless they are undeniably a world class act. The band’s second full-length album since their return from hiatus, Mysterium I, might just be one of their most impressive, and easily one of the most musically eclectic they have produced in their lengthy career.
The gloomy Black Water Mirrors, with its hazy, crawling guitars, steady drums, and haunting violins starts proceedings auspiciously. It’s a bleak, dirge-like offering, coupling thick rhythms and throaty vocals alongside melodic leads and ethereal acoustic interludes, leading seamlessly into the track’s grandiose second half. This is classic death-doom, served with a generous Gothic undertone, and done exceptionally well. The Golden Light Of Late Day maintains the harsh vocals and sombre violin, cello and guitars, but takes a more layered songwriting approach, allowing the various components of the music to be more adventurous, with even the vocals taking on a dramatic spoken word quality. Likewise, the acoustic flourishes are more prevalent, with the music shifting between glorious angelic passages and darker melancholic ones to magnificent effect.
Sundown Transcends Us is an energetic piece, with tighter hooks and punchier leads that are closer to the band’ stoner metal phase, but without sacrificing the morose edge of earlier offerings. It’s a relatively straight forward punchy affair that still possesses an expansive sound. Tinged with psychedelic flourishes, This Glorious Summer is an interesting twist on death-doom, with the hazier distortion and authoritative drumming lending a hypnotic quality to the music. The denser vocals, guitars and prominent bass lines provide a monstrous undercurrent, taking the stripped-back approach of the last song and adding subtle but effective sonic elements into the mix.
Endgame again utilises chunkier guitars, slick and energised riffs and thunderous percussion, but with a faster pace and livelier style, making it an incredibly warm and domineering track, with only the lead guitars, violin and cello that make an appearance towards the song’s climactic minutes keeping it anchored in the band’s darker side. All That Is Known proves to be a cavernous and imposing number, with huge, minimalist guitars giving this a monolithic feel right off the bat. It hoks the listener in before shifting abruptly into a fierce and bombastic slab of granite heavy doom in which hair-raising violins, soaring melodic guitars and feral gutturals compete as they rise to the forefront of the music. It’s a fantastic and decidedly experimental track that seamlessly blurs the stoner and death-doom influences from across the band’s career, with a generous dose of ambience thrown in for good measure.
Mysterium takes the formula of the penultimate track and provides a polished and catchy iteration of it, blending bluesy guitars with gothic violins and cellos as the bass, drums and guitars complement this with meaty rhythms. The heavier use of violins gives this an epic, cinematic tone much like the one used on The Golden Light Of Late Day, another of the album’s stronger offerings, and makes for an excellent conclusion to the record.
Since the release of The Secret Teachings in 2020, it’s initially seemed that CELESTIAL SEASON have abandoned the more stoner metal sound that they had been cultivating in the years leading up to their lengthy hiatus, but this album shows that maybe that’s not entirely the case after all. Although the music definitely leans more heavily into death-doom, there’s plenty of sludgy and polished songs on here that are closer to KYUSS than KATATONIA, albeit mixed more effectively into the mix as opposed to being a dominant factor within the album’s sound. The result is an amalgamation of influences that takes ponderous and brooding portions of death-doom and streamlines and refines them into a far punchier and more memorable sound that will appeal to long-time fans of this style without alienating newcomers to it. It makes for what is arguably the band’s most diverse and wide-ranging album to date, and easily one of their most magnificent from a musical standpoint.
Rating: 9/10
Mysterium I is set for release on April 22nd via Burning World Records.
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