Year: 2025
Label: Zazen Sounds/Monastyr Records/Forbidden Keep Records
Those who’ve been following this site for a while might have realized that my tastes in black metal lean in a very specific direction. If it’s knuckleheadedly, primitively and stubbornly bestial; if it sounds like nothing after Gods Of War ever happened; if it’s got more furious chaos that coherence – then it’s my cup of tea.
Celestial Silence from Ukraine (with Antti Klemi from Absolute Key, Circle Of Ouroboros etc. taking care of the lyrics and vocals) do not fall into this category. With very much emphasis, they do not. In fact, theirs is a style of black metal I most of the time wouldn’t necessarily give the time of day to, although I don’t by any means hate it.
What kind of black metal is it then, I hear our legions of readers cry.
Well, the band themselves describe their music as aggressive yet fragile, raw and tender, and mention “the melodic spirit of rock” and post punk besides black metal. Which is actually quite an appropriate description – as well as not my typical black metal diet.
It’s fairly easy to drop a few names to pinpoint where on the map of black metal Celestial Silence land. Think early Alcest and Amesouers in how they mix a traditional, raw black metal sound with atmospheric, tender post-punk. Think the melancholy and depressive sadness contained in early Xasthur and other early DSBM bands before the whole genre became a parody of, well, everything. Think the dense, foggy guitar sounds of early Drudkh and other bands who would go on to inspire the throngs of nature romantic, atmospheric black metal bands of today. Think of some of the so-called “dark metal” bands of the early noughties, who blended melody and atmosphere in their take on black metal – mid-era Throes Of Dawn, perhaps? That’s where Celestial Silence position their sound.
In other words, the dichotomies the band bring up are entirely valid and essential to Silent Calls From The Other Side. There is rawness here, especially in the somewhat murky, distant and foggy sound; but also tenderness in beautiful, haunting melodies and classical instruments used on occasion. There is aggression here, in the form of furiously sawing guitars and blasting drums. But there is also fragility here, in acoustic passages and interludes, and in particular Klemi’s rather buried, distant, anguished and tortured screams.
Silent Calls From The Other Side chooses melancholy, sadness, beauty and longing as its palette. It paints its pictures in tones of loss, tragedy and mourning. But there is also a furious and abrasive side to the album, balancing out and providing contrast to the more tender moments. It’s the utter, crushing weight of sorrow, the desolation of bereavement, the existential claws tearing the soul when one stands at the brink of oblivion.
But there’s another contrast here as well. Silent Calls From The Other Side is not just the suffocating weight of sorrow. At times, although distant and cold as the autumn sun, light does shine. Above all, it is these glimpses of something behind and beyond the stereotypical blackness of the genre that give the album it’s beauty, and gravitas to that beauty.
With a rather brief running time, merely 30 minutes, it is easy to sit through this album in one go. And that is how it works best. This is not an album from which you should pick individual tracks. But if you do, well, let me offer you two suggestions: Fading Time and Knot Of Pearls are my two favourite tracks. Both combine elements of traditional black metal with the band’s other influences, as well as the contrasting counterparts of rawness/melody and aggression/beauty in them expertly.
As we arrive at the other end of the review, I still maintain that my tastes in black metal are essentially simple, and Silent Calls From The Other Side isn’t necessarily a match. Nonetheless, the more I listen to this album, the more I come to appreciate it. For a debut release, it sounds very mature. It uses its palette of contrasting, contradictory colours with skill and vision. Despite using rather tried and tested elements in their music, Celestial Silence have character. And, to put it a bit banally and blunty, they have good songs.
The perfect soundtrack to the waning daylight of autumn.
Only Death Is Real 