Metal genre preference checkpoint time! If mid 90’s doom/death, Peaceville sound, or this particular band is your thing, please feel free to pass through. If you are here out of curiosity, first hit play on the track below and let it sink in for at least 3 minutes. If the melody doesn’t cut right to your blackened heart, then this may not be for you, or you are not in the mood right now, so please come back on a rainier day.
Now that we’re done alienating people, let’s get to it, and talk about a release from 25 years ago.
Celestial Season – Solar Lovers was originally released in 1995 and has now gotten a reissue in 2020. You ask: why is it a big deal that an underground band that nobody knows about reissued a dusty old album? Well, first scroll to the end of the page, and click on Decamerone in the bandcamp player.
What is so special about the year 1995? Well, it was at the height of the Peaceville Three era. What does that mean? Let’s look at some releases:
- My Dying Bride – The Angel and the Dark River; Turn Loose the Swans was released in 1993;
- Paradise Lost – Draconian Times; Icon was released in 1993;
- Anathema – The Silent Enigma; Serenades was released in 1993.
If you consider yourself a metal fan, but you don’t understand why it’s important that these 6 albums were released at the same time, you, my friend, need some metal schooling.
Now you get why an obscure Dutch doom/death band with the debut out in 1993 and the sophomore release, Solar Lovers, in 1995 didn’t really make it into the spotlight. There are many who tried the Peaceville Three sound, and very few succeeded. Celestial Season is one of the latter.
I personally discovered them around 2000-2001 when I really started digging through the underground. That was back when cassettes and fan-zines were still a thing. My Celestial Season cassette has long since demagnetized, and I never thought I would hear that name ever again, although I still occasionally hum “Vienna” around the house. Yet here we are now, everything has come back to life. The old albums have been reissued and a new one has just come out: The Secret Teachings.
Starting from the first track, The Secret Teachings of all Ages, it is blatantly obvious that this album stays true to the band’s original sound. All the ingredients are there: piano, violins, morose leads over heavy slow rhythms, dark guttural vocals, poetic lyrics, and an overall somber atmosphere.
And the album stays firmly planted in this atmosphere throughout its 1 hour run time. I don’t want to get into the details, I’ll let you discover them since that is part of the joy of experiencing this record. Just imagine taking that basic essence of the sound and exploring further out than a record of this type usually does. It really goes into unexpected places but never fully breaches the loose boundaries of the Peaceville Three sound.
Overall, if you are a fan of the genre, and are looking for something fresh from scene veterans, you just struck gold. Otherwise, give it at least one sorrowful spin, I guarantee it will surprise you.
Not Kinetic Per Se 