Band:	Celestial Grave
Album:	Secular Flesh
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	July 05, 2019
A review by:	RaduP

01. Lamentation
02. Secular Flesh
03. Gasping From Lips Of Night
04. Calamitous Love

At this point it should come to no surprise that music from Finland evokes sorrow. Such is the case with black metal as well.

Celestial Grave, as mentioned, come from Finland. Yet not much is known about who the two members are, despite some of their faces being visible in some photos. So perhaps, with some extensive database and a neural network, we can identify them. Until then, we only know them as a duo to bring us icy raw black metal from the north, courtesy of Iron Bonehead. And that should suffice.

I'll have you know that I wasn't exaggerating when I called this raw. Sure, it's not early 90s demo raw, there is still a distinctive 2010s sound in the rawness, but for a full length released by a relatively big label it feels extremely primitive and unpolished, sometimes for its own good, sometimes not. This does go hand in hand with the atmosphere that the album is trying to create, but it also slightly hinders its ability to be completely immersive. Generally, the more expensive your listening gear, the worse it's going to sound. With how haunting the production makes the album sound, it's probably best to play it on abandoned radio equipment.

As for the atmosphere it evokes, the intro should make it clear that there's plenty of that Finnish sorrow in it, from the wails full of despair to the melodic riffing. Those two feels somewhat at odds with each other, as some of the more melodic moments of the record feel weirdly warm and uplifting, which should make the album feel disjointed, but instead they make Secular Flesh feel much more complete. So much so that even in its runtime that barely reaches over half an hour, it feels like a complete experience, full of emotion and fairly memorable moments, at least relative to such a raw black metal album. Sorrow and despair is obviously not all that Secular Flesh has to offer and they might feel a bit more peripheral than I've made them seem, with a lot of the record having ferocious riffing and gnarly vocals with a slightly occult feel.

Four long tracks, one short album, probably the most melodic raw black metal album or the rawest melodic black metal album. Either way, hard not to feel the northern sorrow oozing out of it, even though the album feels much more than just that.