Whatever their artwork depicts, it works. While Celeste’s music seems at odds with its elegant and avant-garde adornments of the female form, it’s as stark and as uncomfortable. From the sepia-toned nightmares drowned in filth found in Nihiliste(s) and Misantrope(s),1 to the dynamic elegance of the stark Morte(s) Nee(s) and Animale(s), we last landed on the suddenly arresting darkness of 2017’s Infidèle(s) – a far more blackened affair than its predecessors. While you could argue that the glorious heights of colossal magnum opus Animale(s) are of days past, first album in five years Assassine(s) overcomes the pitfalls of its predecessor for an experience as haunting and violating as its cover depicts.
Instead of the blaring Hexis-esque bludgeoning of their humble beginnings, Celeste opts for a mesmerizing and ritualistic feel, thanks to a honed blackened edge and patient rhythms that never illuminate the darkness of Assassine(s)’ environment – safety in distorted darkened corridors. As ever, every second is vitriol calculated to the finest detail, achieved with remarkable balance and spearheaded by Johan Girardeau’s manic shrieks atop Antoine Royer’s rock-solid drumming. Guitarists Guillaume Rieth, Sébastien Ducotté, and Girardeau’s bass dwell in a droning Amenra-esque simplicity, while blackened tremolo and chunky riffs emerge from layers of atmospheric fog. Tracks like “Des torrents de coups” and “Elle se répète froidement” strike this crushing balance, while “De tes yeux bleus perlés” and “Il a tant rêvé d’elles” achieve nearly metalcore clarity with galloping breakdowns atop droning atmospherics. But real humanity, a fissure in the grueling facade, lies in the subtle melodies that recall Morte(s) Nee(s) in tracks like the stunning “Nonchalantes de beauté,” the yearning closer “Le cœur noir charbon,”2 and the patient swells of instrumental interlude “(A).” Swaying between the minor, dissonant, and sanguine, these tracks feel like mad dances, waltzes and ballets, sweeping gracefully across the cold and uneven floor of Assassine(s)’ ballroom with stunning ease.
Assassine(s) features a shriller production and mixing value, recalling Infidèle(s). Compared to the crushing weight of its predecessors, Celeste is more evocative than they are devastating. As such, tracks like “De tes yeux bleus perlés” and “Draguée tout au fond” have the potential to be divisive, as the use of breakdowns is a strangely concrete way to attack this particular brand of blackened obscurity. Furthermore, a symptom of Infidèle(s) is that Assassine(s) feels somewhat unremarkable in regard to the act’s own canon. While overcoming the gimp of its predecessor, rekindling the flame of excellence formerly lost, and outperforming similar blackened hardcore acts thanks to its unique interpretation and aesthetic, it nonetheless falls short of the act’s storied past, remaining in the long shadow of Animale(s).
Celeste has been compared to acts like Hexis, Fall of Efrafa, Amenra, Oathbreaker, Downfall of Gaia, and Year of No Light for years, and has been pigeonholed in extreme subgenres like black metal, hardcore, crust punk, screamo, post-metal, post-black, avant-garde, sludge, and even doom and death. But Celeste has always transcended genre confines, which is furthered in Assasssine(s). It’s vitriolic, ritualistic, and evocative, on a blackened path of self-betterment from its predecessor while missing a little something. It represents its uncomfortable artwork in a way that only Celeste could: a haunting and uncomfortable place of meditation and madness. A conundrum in the best way.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 274 kbps mp3
Label: Nuclear Blast
Websites: celestes.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/celesteband
Releases Worldwide: January 28th, 2022
