��Since the mid 90's, the French band Celestia has been hovering at the edges of the Gallic black metal underground, producing a number of eerie, low-fi albums on Drakkar (the label run by Celestia frontman Noktu) and Full Moon Productions, all of which have delivered some powerful, ghastly black metal forged from the band's murky, mournful melodies, vomitous toadcroak vocals and monotonous blasting drums, with their demos being particularly cool examples of murky, kosmische-tinged blackness. I've never gotten around to picking up any of their releases for the C-Blast shop in the past, though, as most of their stuff has been pretty difficult to track down, but I was particularly drawn to the new reissue of the band's 2007 demo tape Delhys-catess that just came out on Aphelion. Originally released on Drakkar to build interest for their next full-length Frigidiis Apotheosia : Abstinencia Genesiis, this new CD edition of the recording is a gorgeously designed release that showcases an interesting period in the band's career.

�� These two releases from Celestia are of particular interest, as they come from the brief period where the band featured Xasthur's Scott Conner (aka Malefic) on synthesizers, and his presence brought a newfound ghastly seasick quality to Celestia's music that I think stands out as some of their best. The Delhys-catess demo was especially steeped in this killer mixture of raw, vaguely LLN-influenced French black metal and Xasthur-esque delirium, which was rounded out with drummer Astrelya (aka Andy Julia of Soror Dolorosa and Darvulia). The four song EP clocks in at just under twenty minutes, with ghostly, raw blackened metal centering around simple, unadorned riffs circling over propulsive drumming, with Malefic's murky out-of-phase keyboards droning and drifting over everything. Those creepy keyboard textures are really prominent in the mix, melting with the icy, ethereal guitar melodies. Noktu's vocal delivery on the demo is really twisted, too; his sickening frog-like croak is used sparingly throughout the recording, but whenever it appears, the skin crawls. I love the whole primitive, withered feel of these songs, the tempos ranging from that lurching mid-tempo attack to eruptions of blastbeat-driven intensity, but the atmosphere manages to always maintain that forlorn, mist-enshrouded atmosphere. There's definitely a uniquely French feel to the music in the lurching waltz of "The Seed of Negation" and its haunting guitar riffs tumbling through the darkness, while Malefic's weird melting choral keys merge with Tangerine Dream-like textures on "A Regrettable Misinterpretation of Mournfulness". "Death of the Lizard Queen" is another standout, a strange mix of jangly, gloomy poppiness and churning dreamlike black metal, those weird swarming dissonant keyboards continuing to give this a really surreal edge, as if you are hearing some distorted mirror reflection of French black metal, the sound warped and shimmering, phantasmal and discordant.

�� Comes in a stunning six-panel digipack with metallic silver embossed printing.