Artist: Celestial Bloodshed
Title: Cursed, Scarred and Forever Possessed
Type: Album
Label: Debermur Morti
Absolutely no messing about here from this resolutely po-faced group of Norwegians – ‘Cursed, Scarred and Forever Possessed’ is so defiantly orthodox and ‘none-more-black’ that it hurts. Scything, treble-heavy guitars, thunderous reverb-drenched drums and a vocal roar that sounds as if it was dredged from the depths of the Styx combine to produce a sound that is at once both pleasingly atmospheric and almost self-consciously nostalgic. In this age of increasing diversity and modernisation within the black metal scene, there is something curiously appealing about an act who stick so firmly to a template set down in the early 90s. Once the perfunctory introduction is out of the way, the title track is unveiled, ushered in by a funereal dirge that treads a distinctly well-worn melodic path. It’s satisfying, sure, the cavernous production granting the material a suitably ghoulish vibe - yet within two minutes, as the same refrain plays out across accelerating drum patterns, doubts already begin to creep in. It seems as if Celestial Bloodshed have played it just a little TOO safe, a little TOO conventional on their debut here. There’s not a single musical surprise throughout the 34-odd minute duration of ‘Cursed, Scarred and Forever Possessed’, not one note or passage that elevates the songwriting above the ordinary. This is not in itself a condemnation of the release, rather an acknowledgement of the emphasis that Celestial Bloodshed have placed on tradition. Theirs is a sound steeped in sincerity and atmospherics with riffs and hooks taking second place to creating a truly dark ambience. Songs frequently collapse into a cavernous trawl of guitar noise, percussive breaks and ghastly wailing, serving further to underscore the relentlessness of the negativity the band seeks to propagate.
Nevertheless, as ‘Cursed, Scarred and Forever Possessed’ draws to a conclusion with the admittedly haunting shrieks that fade out across ‘Demon of Old’ one can’t quite shrug off a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction. For all of its undoubted ‘trueness’ and for all the conviction of the echo-drenched blackness on display, it really feels as if the songs themselves have become an afterthought to the atmospherics. If there’s one thing the originators of this style rarely overlooked, it was the importance of the riff - thus, with Celestial Bloodshed neither penning any heavy-hitters of their own or abandoning songwriting convention altogether in favour of twisted atmospherics a la Abruptum, they’re left falling a little uncomfortably between two stools.
http://www.debemur-morti.com
Frank Allain
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