When a death metal band comes out from England and is heavily influenced by the earliest stages of Bolt Thrower, chances are I am immediately a fan not because Bolt Thrower were a huge steeple for extreme metal, but Celestial Sanctuary‘s music promises to deliver the goodies and they’ve brought it to life with the debut full-length Soul Diminished and is released through Redefining Darkness Records. I can’t stress myself enough how well crafted, polished and eviscerated this album is because they’ve utilized the heaviness, technicality, proficiency and the band’s professionalism in creating death metal music for the underground surely but steadily a force to reckon with.
Everything from the guitars, drums, vocals, bass and accessible leads of the tightening riffs and melodies feels sharper, more tuned and the compositions here being represented just feels natural, appropriate and staying its welcomed to the point you know exactly what the band is proving to the listener and why they’re making waves to pay homage to the old school death metal influences and formula.
Even hearing songs such as Mass Extinction, Rid The Gormless, Formless Entity and Suffer Your Sentience brings out heart-wrenching musical deliveries, progressive structures, layers of violent and explosive dynamics of relentless intensity, this record has everything you want in a death metal record as it also contains some unique twists and turns as this album does a magnificent job keeping the tempos, rotation and replay value being endless where you want to turn your volume at max and crank the everlasting crap out of this monstrous release. Soul Diminished is a wonderful display into Celestial Sanctuary’s catalogue and any fans of the current era from the new wave of old school death metal movement will get a kick and satisfaction for a record that’s intensely heavy, aggressive and very straightforward at its finest.
Overall Score: 9.0/10
Review by Jake Butler
