Let’s roll out the blood-red carpet for Indonesian death metal project Celestial. Originally formed as Kill Athena, the band embraced a new name this year. That’s partially because they welcomed new full-time collaborators into the mix: drummer Sobron Haki and bassist Amanda Kusuma. Today we premiere their powerful debut album under the fresh moniker, the grimly titled Broken Vows & the Unspoken Truth. Listen to the whole thing below, ahead of the release from Harsh Productions.
“Drifting Through Loss” begins the album with eerie layered vocals and a haze of reverb. But soon Celestial shifts into a technical and expansive approach to melodic death metal. The album is a minefield of blastbeats and mosh riffs with melodic components weaved throughout. Beginning with “Beneath My Eyes,” the album boasts three tracks with contributions from Dawn of Ouroboros vocalist Chelsea Murphy. Her voice lends an inviting and approachable counterpoint to the awesomely hellish performance of frontman Yoga Beges. With his incendiary style, Beges sounds like he breathes fire.
Asked for some of the artists that inspire them, the band lists Rivers of Nihil, Ne Obliviscaris, Alcest, and Fallujah. While you can certainly detect elements of those bands, Celestial fearlessly operates between heavy subgenres with lawless abandon. While the album is most easily defined as progressive death metal, that’s only a fragment of the story. Because of the emotive songwriting, Celestial also sounds like it crawled from the harsher shadows of post-metal as well. Everything on the album was engineered, mixed, and mastered by Celestial guitarist Rshash, and the record reflects that level of personal commitment and intensity.
Discover the unspoken truth from Celestial and press play below.
Order Broken Vows & the Unspoken Truth from Harsh Productions HERE
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