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Finnish black metal outfit Celestial Grave has offered "Eucharist" - the first track from its second album, Vitriolic Atonement, set for release on 23 September - the autumn equinox - via The Sinister Flame.
Since their public unveiling in 2016 with the hideous and haunting Burial Ground Trance demo, Celestial Grave has been steadily perfecting a craft that already arrived fully formed. While the band's brand of black metal does bear some semblance to certain sectors of its native land's long-running and -esteemed scene, Celestial Grave largely unshackles itself from "Finnish black metal" and locates a muse that's uniquely focused and fiercely personal. Such was the case with the epic four-song Secular Flesh debut album in 2019, and now, three years later, that case is even stronger with the sophomore album, Vitriolic Atonement.
Celestial Grave on the new album: "Vitriolic Atonement is a sonic and visual exploration of the dreadful yet beautiful aspects of life and death. It was a comprehensive work for us, where not only the music and lyrics but also the artwork were really central from the start. Vitriolic Atonement goes through different sacraments and rites. Inhale and take in the aspects of darkness, death, and the beyond that are in reach on this mortal plane. Give in, admire its beauty, and come to terms with it. Prepare for the inevitable, because the beyond will be something no mind nor soul can fully comprehend".
Indeed, lose yourself in the hypnotic layers of that cover art, and you'll begin to understand the experience that awaits within Vitriolic Atonement. In a most disarming fashion, Celestial Grave here sounds both bolder and more brittle - robust lead lines painting melancholy and might in equal measure, the execution seemingly more scattered and strident, the songwriting tending toward the anthemic yet upended by haunting twists of texture - whilst not losing that mesmerizing personality that made its predecessors so compelling. As such, Vitriolic Atonement is a full-album experience that's paradoxically more approachable and more alien: allow that wounded melodicism into your soul, all enticingly come hither, and then witness the swirlingly obsidian rot spread.
Foretaste Vitriolic Atonement with the first released single, "Eucharist". Link
Vitriolic Atonement tracklist:
01. Eucharist
02. Cadaverous Solace
03. Clemency
04. The Abyss Exhales
05. Exaltation
06. Radiant Tides Below
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