Band:	Celestine
Album:	At The Borders Of Arcadia
Style:	Post-metal
Release date:	January 30, 2008
A review by:	Lucas

01. And Despair
02. The Witness
03. Of Ruin
04. And God
05. ____-
06. Me

"At The Borders Of Arcadia" is Celestine's first release and one of the very few artists from Iceland that are a little know on the European and American wastelands. Actually, besides Brain Police and Sólstafir, metalbands seem to be a rare sight in the land of glaciers and geysers. Anyway, Celestine is here and Celestine is here to stay. These post-metallers saw their first self-release picked up by the American "Milkweed Records" to become available world wide.

As most post-metallers these days they seem to have taken the task upon themselves to make my life as hard as possible. And thus they endlessly scream their hardcore scream, hurl their obstinate riffs and stubborn rythms so viciously towards my head it nearly decapitates me, and have a snarling distortion on the disharmonic squeels their guitarist throws in every once in a while. And though I am all for a violent approach to music, I can never escape from feeling it all sounds a bit samey after a couple of plays.

However, I do see a lot of potential. In their most inspired moments, when they combine their anger with great atmosphere, they manage to sound very emotive and capturing (track six, "Me", being the best example). It is on these moments that it's as if the ghost of the dead Transmission0 visits us once again and blesses us with a worthy follow-up.

As mentioned earlier, Celestine is still a very young band and this is only their first release. So obviously it is too soon to hail them as the reincarnation of the mighty and underrated Transmission0. Anyway, if they'd become a completely rip-off it wouldn't be good either. I'd recommend them to keep improving themselves, picking up a few more interesting influences from other bands along they way and melt that all into their own sound. They have the music qualities to become a very interesting band.