In late autumn of last year, the Ukrainian death metal band Dying Grotesque released their sophomore full-length album Celestial via the local label Archivist Records, both digitally and on CD. This Kyiv-based trio plays a decidedly old-school brand of death metal – somewhere between the overloaded, non-melodic American sound of the 1990s and the Swedish strain that borders on melodic death metal. Continuing the path they set out on four years ago with the very solid debut Sunflower Tide, released during the first pandemic lockdown in 2020, Celestial reveals a few additional facets of non-linear perception, forming new, almost elusive layers even within such a straightforward genre as death metal.
Formed in 2018 in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, Dying Grotesque first emerged with the demo Hunter’s Daughter, followed by the single “Helga”, the EP Creator Plan, and a split with Dissolution. Over the course of two years, these releases led them to their independently released debut Sunflower Tide. While the lyrics back then leaned toward Slavic mythology, the band has now shifted to more traditional death metal themes – darkness, death, war, and suffering. Still, these topics are approached in a notably emotional and poetic way, with a stronger metaphysical inclination than a social or political one. A year later came the EP Before the Imminence, followed by the single “Red Alert” another year on. After two years of silence, the band began teasing with new material from the upcoming album titled Celestial, hinting at something elevated and unearthly despite the very traditional musical framework.
The bar was already set high with the debut, but the second album presents a more balanced and direct body of work – free from emotional swings or attempts to find its sound. Because that sound has already been found. Notably, Celestial also avoids the patriotic wave that has affected many local bands amid the prolonged military conflict, often saturating lyrics with overtly militaristic themes. Instead, the album reflects on the pettiness of human life and the trivial social problems people create for themselves when set against the infinite cosmic forces that exist independently of human consciousness.
At times, it feels as though melodic lines on Celestial are deliberately muffled, allowing chaotic layers of guitar chords, accented by noise and dissonance, to dominate the foreground. This reinforces the album’s heaviness and brutality. It doesn’t always work flawlessly, though, and occasionally melody tears away the mask of feigned aggression and restraint, exposing more human emotions beneath. These moments are rare but striking, and they are woven in organically, without attempting to dethrone the album’s dense, uncompromising death metal core. Even the band’s name makes it clear that this music is not about beauty or life, but about grotesque and death, though the name itself is controversial. If the grotesque is dying… perhaps aesthetics are born in its place. For now, however, anger, darkness, death, ugliness, and grotesque visions of an imperfect world remain tightly concentrated within these Ukrainians, finding effective expression through musical form.
Across just under forty minutes, the album condenses the power of old-school death metal, periodically veering into chaos, melody, or hints of a more modern sound. The slower tracks never drift into doom/death territory, while the faster ones lean convincingly towards thrash/death. The album opens with the classic “Nuclear Meadows” – an atmospheric, mature, and moderately chaotic track that serves as a strong representation of the album as a whole. Even the bridges, the transitions between brutal, raw old-school death metal and more melodic death-thrash, tend to sound restrained and almost unnoticeable. “Purification” moves closer to groove and modern metal, standing slightly apart from the overall flow, though this only becomes apparent if you listen very closely and dissect the layers to reach the song’s core. On “Satellites” strange, almost Eastern-tinged psychedelic riffs emerge, but they never become the foundation of the track or push the sound fully into psychedelia or ethnic territory. Naturally, the acoustic intro “Point of View” works wonders in terms of contrast – acoustic passages in extreme music almost always emphasize heaviness and depth, sometimes even producing a shock effect (though mostly for less seasoned metal listeners).
Overall, Celestial is fascinating in the way its noise and heaviness, bordering on rawness and chaos, serves to sharpen sensory impact. You practically choke on this merciless wall of sound, though not to the extent of bands like Incantation, where dissonance itself forms the core of the song-writing. Just as subtly, softer elements begin to creep in – melodic, clear, and harmonious, pulling you back from abstract madness into sober realism. The album closes with “Mortality” very much in the spirit of Dying Grotesque, yet featuring an atypical ending: atmospheric, sad, and contemplative. As if these were the final sounds of a dying grotesque.
The Ukrainian extreme metal scene continues to develop at a rapid pace, and Dying Grotesque demonstrate their skill and musical vision through a fusion of classical foundation and chaos. Celestial is a tribute to death metal legends, but with a clear gaze towards the future. Even within the music itself, there seems to be a small place of emptiness – space left intentionally for experimentation on the next release, which will likely be even more deliberate and multifaceted. The album artwork captures this nuance as well: it feels slightly unfinished (though the concept is clear and well conveyed), raw and cosmic in tone, offering the listener additional food for thought. When and where will the final point be placed? In life, or after death? And what awaits beyond death itself?
