Label - Church Road Records
Release Date - 25th August 2023
Words - Tony Bliss
The most astute metal pundits of our world will have been tipping Celestial Sanctuary for glory for a hot minute now, not least due to the steam-rolling brilliance of their full-length debut Soul Diminished - a record whose gruesome ultra-violence struck a diabolical chord with the underground community as a whole, and saw frothing plaudits from such extreme metal dignitaries as Max Cavalera, no less. Consequently, fan expectations will be high this time round, but Insatiable Thirst For Torment is a tangible step up in every conceivable sense, emphasizing a self-evident truth that Celestial Sanctuary, for all their shrewdly dynamic detours, are evangelically death metal to the bone, and primed to take the heads of their nascent peers in the UK and beyond.
Unhindered by lofty concepts and no doubt emboldened by the band's recent acclaim, Insatiable… reeks of victory, it’s ‘mount the battlements and proclaim war’ approach really upping the stakes in terms of multi-limbed, pitch-black extremity - especially on the likes of a colossal ‘Biomineralization (Cell Death)’, which recalls the oozing menace of prime Morbid Angel, or the phenomenally named ‘Glutted With Chunder’ which flails and stomps amid a blizzard of riff-filth. Indeed, the band churn out jagged, marauding death metal grooves with the casual finesse of aged but exuberant veterans, each track espousing all the subtlety of a runaway siege train, even when the spiralling guitar melodies emerge during ‘The Lurid Glow Of A Dead, Burning Body’ and ’Meandering Stream Of Foul Fluid’, providing something of a grandiose undercurrent to the albums rippling air of riff-based supremacy and the molten hate-sludge spewing from our speakers.
Crucially, it is Celestial Sanctuary’s razor-keen song-writing, with all the brains and sharpness that discerning metal fans demand, that lies at the heart of Insatiable…’s success; you need not look any further than opener ‘Trapped Within The Rank Membrane’ for evidence of this, as the band blast ‘n’ slam through six minutes of growl along hooks with the virulent stench of evil billowing from every tempo shift. Add to this a pitch-perfect production job, which provides that necessary low-end oomph and glistening clarity to every last note and frothing warthog grunt, and it’s uniformly brutal and stirring stuff, propelled along with tireless energy and the kind of vicious momentum that more studious and precise death metal bands consistently fail to generate. Simply put, this is a darker and nastier incantation of what Celestial Sanctuary are all about, and Insatiable Thirst For Torment is remorselessly good.
8.5/10
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