Rating: 9.8

Country: France

Release Date: 2008

Record Label: Paragon / Drakkar

Track list:
1. She's Dead (Valse Funeste de Decomposition)
2. A Plaintive Cry Merely Echo
3. Admirable Eros Abstraction
4. A Regrettable Misinterpretation of Mournfulness
5. Death of the Lizard Queen (Necro PhaanthasmA)
6. Morbid Romance (ArcanA VI Revisitae)
7. The Seed of Negation (AbnegativiA Rejections)
8. Frigidiis Apotheosia (Dormant rests of Raped NecrosiA)

Total playing time   44:17

Band Website: Celestia

Celestia - Frigidiis Apotheosia : Abstinencia Genesiis

Noktu - Vocals, Guitars, Bass
Malefic (Scott Conner) - Keyboards

To be honest, I was expecting the worst when I heard that Malefic (Xasthur/Twilight) would be handling synth as a session guest in this album. However, I'm happy to report that not only is this the best black metal with which Malefic's keyboards have mingled, but Frigidiis Apotheosia is the most solid Celestia outing yet. For those unfamiliar, Celestia's music is distinctly dreary and macabre, as reflected by song titles like "She's Dead." To be a cunt and throw around comparisons, I hear a bit of Mütiilation (among other LLN relics), and obviously Noktu's other projects, Mortifera and Genocide Kommando. A similarity can also be drawn to some of later Gorgoroth's more strikingly regal songs, except there's not a corny Handelesque harpsichord interlude to be heard, thank fuck. But above all, Frigidiis Apotheosia is essentially a logical extension of Celestia's past endeavors stretched into an atmospheric apex of Xasthurian gloom; the eloquent expression of morbidity it seems like Noktu has been attempting to produce until now. 

Gone are the sugary lead melodies and occasional Attila-esque drawling (instead Noktu opts for a messy reptilian croak somewhere along the lines of later Mayhem's Maniac) of Apparitia - Sumptuous Spectre, but in their place are songs composed with a romanticist attention to powerfully deliberate key modulation and casual, waltzy melodic advancement. Celestia's growing fondness of the acoustic guitar is also rather interesting. While most bands strive to keep their metal and acoustic music separate entities, usually using the latter as an intro or soothing coda, Noktu has introduced minimalistic plucking to the core of some of the songs' baroque chord progressions to expand the music's temperamental range; from melancholy, to lofty plateaus of pride and confidence. Perhaps his time with Neige in Mortifera is further awakening his inner neoclassicist. 

The unfortunately named "Morbid Romance" from Apparitia - Sumptuous Spectre is revisited, benefiting from a far superior mix. It initially seems like a bit of a waste of space in an album composed of only eight tracks, but Celestia manage to make it into its own song with a sweeping counterpoint layer of ambience and the insertion of a bizarre break filled with meandering acoustics and mad crooning. Speaking of the album's brevity, that can be attributed to it being trimmed of filler; for every two minute stretch of tepid tremolo buzz present on Apparitia, there's an actual galloping riff here.

Unlike the majority of black metal albums, Frigidiis Apotheosia slowly peaks, climaxing at the end rather than blowing its load in the course of the first few songs, then vacantly shambling like Hayden Christensen throughout the rest. In other words, you begin thinking "oh, this sounds okay," and 40 minutes later you're figuratively dangling from a noose. (Or, if you'd prefer, literally; I don't care either way.) The seventh song, "The Seed of Negation," is essentially a metallic waltz stridently capitalizing on the album's aristocratic arrogance, while the recording is punctuated imperially by the otherworldly ambience of the title song. This studious attention to pacing, whether intentional or accidental, is Frigidiis Apotheosia's greatest boon; it invites you to share its anguish rather than insisting upon itself with exclusively low key pseudo-Burzumic rubbish.   

Noktu once said in an interview that because he simply plays black metal with a personal touch, Celestia has no potential for evolution. I suppose that depends upon one's definition of an ideal as abstract and oft-abused as "progression," but whatever the case, Frigidiis Apotheosia is a bilious serenade that will stand as evidence of the contrary until our mortal clay returns to the Earth. Bravo. 

March 24th, 2008