#celestial black metal

[svartinsania]

Have an atmospheric playlist my dude

[cremationisirreversible]

[drondskaath]

Black Curse | Burning in Celestial Poison | 25th October, 2024

American Black/Death Metal

Artwork by Brendan Macleod

[dustedmagazine]

Black Curse — Burning in Celestial Poison (Sepulchral Voice)

There must be something in the air out in Denver — something bad. Of Feather and Bone and especially Primitive Man have been making mercilessly ugly music, amid a bumping Denver metro scene that also includes black metal outlaws Wayfarer and bum-out specialists Khemmis. But for sheer gonzo energy and near-incoherent rage, it’s hard to top the black/death of Black Curse. The band’s previous LP Endless Wound stirred up a noisome, caustic concoction of sonic abuse, with irregular shifts into the agonizing doom of Jonathan Campos’s other band (the aforementioned and peerless Primitive Man). Burning in Celestial Poison amps up the intensity and provides more of it: three of the five songs on the record exceed the ten-minute mark, and they constitute unflagging, unholy assaults, on your ears and the condition of your soul.

Those are overheated figures of speech and thought, to be sure, but Black Curse burns even hotter. Hard to say precisely what that titular “celestial poison” might be — but the Early Modern album art suggests it either leaks from the body of Lucifer (yikes), or it may reach further back, to the serpent that drips venom into the eyes of Loki. Songs like “Spleen Girt with Serpent” (your humble reviewer first read that as “Spleen Girl with Serpent,” and really liked it; seems like there should be a punk band called Spleen Girl…) and “Flowers of Gethsemane” gesture in both of those directions. Either way, the mythic sources are dire, epic in scale, and the music incinerates and moans ecstatically.

On a less elevated (or subterranean…?) plane, it’s tempting to hear this record and understand it semi-allegorically, as a report on the last three months of life in the States. Since Kamala Harris assumed the mantle (best phrase for that shift away from Biden, which happened more in a modality of succession than anything involving direct action from the polis) of the Democratic Party, the pace of life has proceeded with a bewildering temporality. Time has simultaneously passed impossibly quickly and impossibly slowly. The toggling might have something to do with just how plugged in you are to the constant news of malfeasance and cynicism, and also to just how many campaign ads you have been subjected. It’s all awful. It won’t stop. And even after election day, there will likely be no quick resolution to the agonies.

This review will likely be published into that post-election-day morass, in which the textures and pace of Black Curse’s long sprints and sudden drops into dirge may seem even more in tune with the national affect. The most sonically volatile track on the record (and this reviewer’s fave, for whatever that’s worth) is titled “Trodden Flesh.” It remains to be seen where all those stamping, marching or fleeing feet are going, into what future. What’s certain even now is the condition of the flesh beneath them: trodden on, suffering, exhausted. Burning in Celestial Poison won’t improve the emotional condition of that flesh, but it registers the pain, and the rage that builds just beneath it.

Jonathan Shaw

[symmetricalscar]

Black Curse - Burning In Celestial Poison

[queerbarddragon]

Album of the day

[draculas-tits]

tbh ever since i isolated from everyone i've been making some way better music. it's like, without people around to show off half finished songs to, i have to finish them and upload them if i want to share them with anyone, so i'm more motivated to put effort and time into finishing songs than before. my avg song time went from 1min30sec to like 3 ~ 4 minutes, i'm adding more movements, and more things in those movements. it feels like the same thing is happening with my 3d modeling. my attention span and motivation are growing from the inability to show people half finished projects. everything i'm working on is benefitting from more dedicated work and attention paid to it. I have to finish my projects and now I have the capability to do that

[trvgbild]

Celestial Bloodshed - Cursed, Scarred and forever Possessed

[onlyhurtforaminute]

celestrial annihilator-eternal flames of doom

[kriegsgeist]

Celestial Bloodshed - Sign of the Zodiac

[darktripz]

EQUIPPED DAGGER - Forest of Frost Enchantment

EQUIPPED DAGGER - Winters of Arcania

PRESSURED REMAINS - Death Before Dismount EP

MOURNFUL LAMENT - Winter ‘22 Rehearsal

[cremationisirreversible]

𝕾𝖍𝖆𝖉𝖔𝖜𝖘 𝕺𝖋 𝕬 𝕮𝖊𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖙𝖎𝖆𝖑 𝕭𝖔𝖉𝖞 – 𝔅𝔩𝔢𝔞𝔨 𝔇𝔢𝔳𝔬𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫

Under The White Roses / 2024

[drondskaath]

Dusk Shrine | Celestial Trauma | 2024

American Atmospheric Black Metal

[closeted-goth]

i may listen to some new ~~black metal~~ on occasion, as a little treat. and sometimes it is even good!