Celestial Sanctuary - Insatiable Thirst For Torment

Celestial Sanctuary – Insatiable Thirst For Torment
Release Date: 25th August 2023
Label: Church Road Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal
FFO: Undeath, Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, Morbid Angel, Maul, Phobophilic, Malignant Altar.
Review By: Mark Young

Right, so I’ll level with you from the off. I caught these live in Manchester in January with Iron Tomb and Undeath, and it laid down a marker for gig of the year. It had everything – three bands just going for it, a crowd that reciprocated, and above all an incredibly high level of music. It was a night for brutal metal, and they delivered. I picked up Soul Diminished on the back of their performance and whilst it was a pretty gnarly slab of metal, live they seemed to have moved beyond them like the songs had evolved.

When the fine folks at Church Road dropped the news that they were getting ready for their second full length, I knew the songs would be good.

And they are.

The following 8 songs represent a high watermark in death metal from the UK. Previously, UK metal releases when held against their international counterparts sometimes seemed flat, not possessing that authenticity that the others had. There is no doubt in my mind now that they can stand toe to toe with any band (as anybody who caught them with Undeath will attest).

The slow, grind of Trapped Within the Rank Membrane throws down the gauntlet with what you are going to be hit with over the next 40 minutes. This is a constant battering and is just light-years ahead of Soul Diminished. Everything sounds vital, fresh, and you know that live this is going to be a neck snapper. Glutted with Chunder comes in and crushes, and you know that if a song makes you want to play it, it’s a winner and then into the blast beats with some fretboard beating that switches gear on a whim with Swivel Eyed and Gurning in the Shadows. It’s possibly the strongest opening salvo you will hear this year, keeping the musicality and the brutality keenly balanced.

It’s not just sledgehammer time, though, Meandering Stream of Foul Fluid has a trippy start until they decide it’s time to make with the heavy again. It’s royal, just royal. There is just no drop off in quality, its riffs for days as Biomineralization just seems to slide from the speakers, replaced by The Lurid Glow of a Dead, Burning Body which brings us triplets, trem picking and some unholy melodic breaks that just fit. And this is the thing, those bands that have ‘something’, just do this effortlessly. Unquenchable Thirst use that harmony motif that I love, keeping that controlled fury in check until they decide it’s time to change it up.

They leave the fast for last, with Gutted with a Blunt Blade booting straight off with the shortest track here, it’s just fast, and possessed of abuse of the whammy bar and a face melter of a solo. This is job done. They have come and committed grievous sonic harm, and it’s a classic. What I would dearly love to happen is for the extreme metal community to embrace this release, go to the shows, buy the merch because they have got so much more to say. Bands like these are vital to the extreme scene, so there is no excuse not to buy this music.