Celeste : "Pessimiste" (Denovali Records)

France is better known for electronic exports like Air and Daft Punk, but Lyon hardcore/metal quartet Celeste are here to redress the balance with "Pessimiste", a 12" (limited to 500 copies) featuring 5 tracks of apocalyptic, discordant heavy rock. It's a devastatingly brilliant statement combining the key elements of Neurosis, Will Haven, Red Sparowes and even hints of Explosions In The Sky. Celeste have created a distinctive sound despite being involved in a over-crowded genre.

Listening to the monumental "Diluons Nos Souvenirs D'enfance", is like the equivelent of being hit by a tonne of bricks. It leaves you absolutely flattened by the sheer intensity of its impact. It's stunning five minutes of barbed guitars, explosive throat-shredding vocals and dynamic drums. But you will realise from the outset on opener "Afin de Tromper L'ennui", that Celeste are an uncompromising beast. They don't do things by halves, they go for the throat like a pack of rabid wolves.

Music simply cannot get any heavier than "Car Quoi Qu'il Advienne, Tout est à Chier". Designed to rupture your speaker system (and possibly your eardrums), Celeste weave between dense metal dynamics and intricate Explosions In The Sky style guitar interplay. Then both aspects are combined to near fatal effect. However, amidst the mass of doom, strife and juggernaut riffs, there is a keen sense of melody buried deep in their apocalyptic sound. "De Notre Aversion à Notre Perversion" starts like the tolling of the bells of hell itself, then swerves into a beautiful tranquil guitar passage, before we are escoretd right back to Satan's lair via riffs the size of tidal waves.

Drawing on influences that are both experimental and diverse, Celeste has melted the boundaries of hardcore and metal to create something that is their own. Hauntingly heavy and intoxicatingly melodic, this is metal but not as we know it.

Rating - 86%

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"Afin de Tromper L'ennui" mp3 - Celeste