EP REVIEW: Epilogue(s) – Celeste

After releasing one of the best black metal albums of 2022, French avant-garde quartet CELESTE gave themselves a tough act to follow. Assassine(s) showcased a violent and virile brand of black metal that took as much from hardcore and grindcore as it did ambient and sludge to create an album that you wanted to return to time and time again, no matter how brutal it may first seem.

Epilogue(s) is described as “three bonus tracks” from Assassine(s) and therefore offers a trio of new cuts of CELESTE doing what they do best, largely picking up right where they left us. Il Se Vide Lentiment (‘it emptied slowly’) is as bleak and uncompromising as anything from that album, a restless and grinding assault on the senses that wraps around you like a noxious cloud that blots out the sun.

Plisse Les Yeux Jusqu’au Sang (‘Squint your eyes until they bleed’) continues the attack without missing a beat, keeping the speed and savagery intact. Their serrated guitars take on a blunted edge midway through the song that exemplifies the band’s sonic brutality, before mounting tension drones unfold into a short, soaring solo that lends the track an effervescence that fits neatly into the murk of it all.

With Idle Hands caps the EP like a light at the end of the tunnel, providing a relative warmth as a tonic to the coldness of all that came before. Slower, more ambient and utterly arresting, it’s another reminder of just how accomplished CELESTE are as a band and shows how many strings there are to their military-grade bow.

Now 18 years into their career, CELESTE continue to prove that there is no limit to what they can achieve. Epilogue(s) is a stunning continuation of their career-best effort and a warning shot to other black metal bands grasping for the crown.

Rating: 8/10

Epilogue(s) is out now via Nuclear Blast Records.

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