Album Review: Celestial Sanctuary – Soul Diminished (Redefining Darkness Records/Church Road Records)

Formed in late 2019 in Cambridge, England, by Tomas Cronin (Vocals & Guitar) with James Burke (Drums), Jim Rutterford (Bassh and Matt Adnett (Guitar) rounding out the line up – Celestial Sanctuary are a feral, primal and modern death metal band with their own message about the destructive nature of humankind.

Redefining Darkness Records (US) and Church Road Records (UK) have teamed up to release their full-length debut, Soul Diminished on March 26th 2021.

With blackness in the hearts and darkness in their souls, Celestial Sanctuary bring forth a bleak and crushing album’s worth of heavy music. With one eye respectfully on the past, another is firmly focused on taking the classic combination of ferocity and speed into the future. You can immediately tell from the moment Rid the Gormless and the title track burst into life that Celestial Sanctuary are way more interested in moving forward than backwards.

Though, if an expulsion of frenzied and thick riffs, bone-cracking drums and bass, howling and hellish vocals, and carnage in general is what you’re after, Celestial Sanctuary will more than deliver. Tracks like Relentless Savagery (the filth of those guitar squeals), Wretched Habits (such heavy bleakness) and Suffer Your Sentience (doominess that flows into screeching savagery), the middle portion of the album, absolutely slays.

All fans of brutality layered with incomprehensible darkness will find themselves drawn into the choking haze that Celestial Sanctuary inhabit.

Mass Extinction, Yearn for the Rot and Endless Chasm keep the wild head-banging party on track. A trio that has all the power and passion of a band doing this for far longer than they currently have been. The absolute joy that will be felt as the riffs dig in and the bass crawls under the skin on Yearn for the Rot in particular can’t be understated. Whereas the overall ferocity of the other two are capable of causing sweaty palpitations.

It’s so addictive and Celestial Sanctuary have certainly made their mark even before they go out with the short, horror-infused outro of Formless Entity. One of the best death metal releases of 2020.

Celestial Sanctuary – Soul Diminished Full Track Listing:

1. Rid the Gormless
2. Soul Diminished
3. Relentless Savagery
4. Wretched Habits
5. Suffer Your Sentience
6. Mass Extinction
7. Yearn for the Rot
8. Endless Chasm
9. Formless Entity

Links

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