Waidelotte — Celestial Shrine

Celestial Shrine is this Ukrainian band's debut album appearing on Debemur Morti Productions. It's a release that  blends Black Metal, Melodic Death Metal and Progressive Metal with traditional Folk singing and instrumentation

After a melancholic acoustic folk opening that sounds like something off of Opeth's Blackwater Park, we move into heavier musical territory with heavy influence from symphonic black metal, specifically Emperor's Anthem to the Welkin at Dusk, and later works.  Strident, intelligently harmonized tremolo progressions from the guitar combine with luminous-sounding flute patches from the synthesizer.

There are also progressive elements not typically heard in Emperor or other black metal, such as the melodic, highly active bass performance.  Something like this is perhaps heard on Opeth's Morningrise, or Death's albums.  I'm a huge fan of the tone of electric bass when used for melody, and it adds a lot of depth here.

The atmosphere feels like medieval fantasy but without any cheese at all, a convincingly grim dark folk mood.  The highly melodic guitars have the majestic processional quality of some of my favorite Viking projects, like Windir or Summoning, and in equal parts the tragic tone and sweet harmony of melo-death bands like At the Gates or In Flames.

The overall tempo and energy level is a bit less fierce than classic Emperor or other black metal, as this is more of a mid-paced project that only occasionally employs blast beats at the crowning moment of a climax.  There are many instances of wide, cinematic dynamic range, and experimental ambient gestures used to connect more powerful passages.  The final track, "Dissolving", is an elongated eight-minute expanse of synth pads and space ambience.

The fourth tune, "Opulent Mirage", ends with a heartfelt choral round with many powerful projected voices, drawing on the traditional Eastern European folk singing styles.  Such choirs return in the seventh track "Lightkeeper" and title track "Celestial Shrine".  Ultimately it's a very soulful album, never obscuring its heart behind any kind of aggressive persona.  The lush outpouring of feelings in the minute-long interlude, "Ascending" is another such example, and here the plucked acoustic strings glitter so exotically that I checked the credits to see if it was in fact some ancient instrument, rather than a guitar.  I was unable to ascertain, but perhaps it is.

 

All in all Celestial Shrine feels like an undiscovered classic, which I can hardly believe is a new band.  Even down to the ear-massaging warm production, it feels like a 90s opus to be placed alongside many of my favourite groups.  The fluent musicianship and thoughtful, intelligent writing feels like the work of veterans.  It's truthfully one of the best albums I've ever heard of this kind, and seems to straddle all of my favourite niche styles.  If you're looking for something with that gothic 'black forest' feel and tuneful classically infused writing, you truly could not do better than this.