### Celestial Season: Forever scarlet passion

#### 06/02/09 || Daemonomania

From the minute you see that lace-surrounded hand emerge from the cover, you know you’re in trouble. Yep, the debut album by Celestial Season is nowhere near their later album “Solar lovers.” Back in 1993 they hadn’t fully incorporated the stoner aspect into their sound, and as a result the songs don’t have that fun mix of pothead abandon and longing doom/death.

Not that I’ve listened to too much My Dying Bride, but safe to say they were a big influence on these dainty Dutchmen. There’s a whole lotta violin, a pinch of weepiness and whispering, and a heaping helping of meandering. Overall the songs lack structure, so you could really start enjoying one part and then a few seconds later find out that the track may have changed with no real indication as to when the switch occurred. Maybe they were going for that – a kind of single, long, unified piece. We all know that worked real well with “Catch 33.” Riiiight.

However, that’s not to say that the whole thing is a waste of time. “Together in solitude” and “For eternity” are great – mixing in powerful doom riffs with the violin’s sad melodies. You’ll be crying while headbanging, resulting in tears being flung all around the room. Wherever they land, a magic beansprout will grow. And you’ll climb it, only to be seduced by some harp ho and ground into table salt by the ghost of Charlton Heston’s penis. Or something.

Anyway, this is one of those albums that you can leave on in the background. It is pleasing, nothing is jarringly terrible. Well executed early 90’s doom/death with a classical lean, a somewhat muddy production, and an absence of clear boundaries between songs. I’d say two out of three of the aforementioned items can be applied to most of the subgenre during that period, though, so no major crime by Celestial Season. And they would get a whole lot better, real quick.

6 their debut album was totally where they started out but then they got better but then they might have sold out, dudes, out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 1993
- Label: Adipocere Records
- Website: Celestial Season MySpace
- Band
- Stefan Ruiters: vocals
- Jason Kohnen: drums
- Lucas Van Slegtenhorst: bass
- Robert Ruiters: guitars
- Jeroen Haverkamp: guitars
- Edith Mathot: violin
- Sylvester Piyel: keyboards

- Tracklist
- 01. Cherish My Pain
- 02. The Merciful
- 03. In Sweet Bitterness
- 04. Ophelia
- 05. Together in Solitude
- 06. Mother of All Passions
- 07. Flowerskin
- 08. Afterglow
- 09. For Eternity