This year, we decided to ask musicians that we truly admire to pick their favorite albums of the year and name a band they’d like to get together and make a new record in 2014. Check out below the second batch of answers that we received from members of Woe, Celeste and Winterfylleth.

Chris Grigg (Woe)

What are your top 10 releases of 2013?
Unweighted for preference:
1-Beastmilk - Climax
2-Carcass - Surgical Steel
3-Chelsea Wolfe - Pain is Beauty
4-Fuck Buttons - Slow Focus
5-Gorguts - Colored Sands
6-Inter Arma - Sky Burial
7-Kanye West - Yeezus
8-My Bloody Valentine - MBV
9-Queens of the Stone Age - …Like Clockwork
10-A Wilhelm Scream - Party Crasher

What’s the best concert you have seen this year?
That's hard to say. It's a tossup between Nine Inch Nails, Kanye West, and Inter Arma while we were on tour with them. NIN were absolutely perfect and mind-blowing; Kanye was really exciting; Inter Arma were consistently breathtaking and powerful.

What band would you like to reunite and make a record in 2014?
Failure. We're half-way there, what with them announcing reunion shows in 2014, but they haven't said anything about an album. It doesn't seem out of the question!

Johan (Celeste)

What are your top 10 releases of 2013?
1-Deftones - Koi No Yokan
2-Rorcal - Villagvege
3-Russian Circle - Memorial
4-Ulcerate - Vermis
5-Bring me the Horizon - Sempiternal
6-Katy Perry - Prism
7-Toxic Avenger - Romance and cigarettes
8-Ataraxie - L'être et la nausée
9-Black Tongue - Falsifier
10-Terra Tenebrosa - The Purging

What’s the best concert you have seen this year?
The Sea And Cake at L'épicerie Moderne, Feyzin

What band would you like to reunite and make a record in 2014?
Shora

Chris Naughton (Winterfylleth)

What are your top 10 releases of 2013?
Top 15 as I tried to include everyone's view.
1-Carcass - Surgical Steel
2-Grave Miasma – Odori Sepulcrorum
3-Hate Forest/Ildjarn - Those Once Mighty Fallen
4-Katatonia - Dethroned & Uncrowned
5-Palms - S/T
6-Black Sabbath - 13
7-Windhand - SOMA
8-Saor - Roots
9-Wardruna - Runaljod – Yggdrasil
10-Hail of Bullets - III: The Rommel Chronicles
11-In Solitude - Sister
12-Deafheaven - Sunbather
13-Atlantean Kodex - The White Goddess (A Grammar Of Poetic Myth)
14-Cult of Luna - Vertikal
15-Cathedral - The Last Spire

What’s the best concert you have seen this year?
Iron Maiden - Maiden England at Graspop Metal Meeting, Belgium
I think this was one that was a true highlight for all the Winterfylleth members, a top day having played the festival and then seeing the Maiden bring the house down at the end was a real delight.

What band would you like to reunite and make a record in 2014?
I think I’d personally like to hear what At The Gates could come up with if they did another album.


Read More »

Nowadays there are an increasing number of bands blurring the lines separating distinct styles of music that normally we’d never expected to hear merged together into a single and cohesive whole, constantly pushing the envelope forward. Such is the case of France based four-piece Celeste who play a eerie and anguished blend of Post-Hardcore with Black-Metal and whose latest creation “Misanthrope(s)” is more than worth talking about, for it does sounds deeply compelling and disturbing.
I wouldn’t call “Misanthrope(s)” an accessible album, it will take some time to get used to their intriguing musical visions and all the bile and torment emanating from them, but with a slight amount of patience and persistence the experience will prove to be rewarding.
There are no gentle intros or slow build-ups; rather Celeste plunges straight into an avalanche of repetitive, heavy riffs and raspy and agonizing screams on the opening theme "Que des yeux vides et séchés". The vocal performance of Johan is more caustic and tormented than some of the most raw and filthiest Black-Metal coming from Scandinavia and the fact that he sings in French only adds a cryptic ambience to the songs. I should add that the Black-Metal influence is not only perceptible on the vocal department as there are also traces of Black-Metal to found in the guitar work of Guillaume as well, most notably on “A défaut de te jeter sur ta progéniture”, where the chords are faster and more malevolent. However, throughout most of the remaining songs their riffs crawl fiercely from the speakers at a somewhat comatose pace hint slightly at Cult of Luna on their initial stage, when they were far more destructive and fiercer than today.
Celeste have presented us a sludgy, nasty and downright intense record that all of you looking for something different and vicious should give it a listen, and all you have to do is download “Misanthrope(s)” at the band’s website for free. Or eventually you can donate a little something to support them. (7.5/10)

Band info: www.weareceleste.com
Label info: www.denovali.com
Read More »

Celeste, the name alone would suggest something blissful and angelic, yet for a rising extreme metal group from Lyon, France who’ve chosen the Latin word to name themselves, Celeste stands for cruel, savage and abrasive sounds. Citing influences as far-ranging as Neurosis, Amen Ra, Meshuggah, Wolves in the Throne Room, Nasum and Black Sabbath, the four young and talented musicians known as Celeste have recently issued another feast of vitriolic and malevolent music intriguingly titled “Misanthrope(s)”.
Intrigued by the nature of this singular and exciting collective Scratch the Surface took the opportunity to exchange a few words with vocalist Johan to find out more about Celeste’s origins and their latest creation “Misanthrope(s)”.

The music of Celeste clearly draws influences from a wide variety of genres and artists, yet if you were asked to single out a style or artist whose influence prevails over the new record what would it be?

“At the beginning we were influenced by bands like Shora, Neurosis, Breach, old Cult of Luna… but honestly when I write it, I’m not sure that I mean it unless for Shora, I honestly don’t know by who we could be influenced. Maybe our particularity is that each one of us doesn’t listen to the same kind of music, and actually we’re not big music listeners, so we can’t really be influenced…
It’s really hard to put us in a particular category. Some people say that we are a Black Metal band, others think that we are post-hardcore, and some still think that we do screamo. That’s weird. But finally the interesting thing is that our audience is extremely eclectic.”

How did you all get together as a band? It’s not everyday that you hear about a French collective blending strands of Hardcore, Sludge, Black-Metal and Post-Rock into a whole and there’s precious little information regarding Celeste’s origins available on the band’s official sites.

“Actually, we’re active for almost 4 years now and we are from Lyon. I was singing in Mihai Edrisch before I met the other guys from Celeste. The band already existed, not as Celeste, but they hadn’t released anything. When I joined the band things went pretty fast. As Mihai Edrisch disbanded a bit later, Celeste became my only band, so I really got involved into it. We have 2 albums already released “pessimiste(s)” and “nihiliste(s)”, and we’re currently releasing the new one called “misanthrope(s)”.

Your latest work “Misanthrope(s)” is available on Denovali Records’ website for free, as it occurred with Celeste’s previous two releases “Pessimiste(s)” and “Nihiliste(s).” The band along with their record label seem to have an inclination for doing this, is there any particular reason for that, do you think the album will eventually be available for downloads from illegal sources?

“I always thought that sharing the music was a good idea. I was thinking about asking Timo and Thomas from Denovali about that, but they came to me with the proposal before I had time to ask them. I think that it helps us a lot to catch the audience during our shows. Thanks to downloads we know that more people will know our songs, so the ambiance will be better. But I think that people are not aware enough about the issues behind this. I think that too many people see this as a free gift. But the real point is: This is a way to discover us. Then if you like our music, it’s important that you get a real release from us to support the label and us. If you don’t care about Cds or LPs, you can simply donate a few bucks. I hope that in the future, people will understand that more and more.
And yeah, of course, it doesn’t stop people sharing it in some other ways than from the label site. If you type “celeste misanthrope(s)” you’ll find something like 50 different blogs which put our stuff online via websites like rapidshare or mediafire. In some ways, I don’t care, but I don’t get the point of this behaviour… they could simply put the official download page link.”

“Misanthrope(s)” can be seen as a scarring experience with sludgy and crusty riffs creating a tension that is disturbingly menacing and heavily tormented Black-tinged singing, cleverly juxtaposed against more unwinding moments provided by more hypnotic and dissonant guitar chords.
In your opinion what is the biggest difference between “Misanthrope(s)” and “Nihiliste(s)?”

“It wasn’t made on purpose but I think that the biggest difference is that the Black Metal hints are more obvious. To get us, you just have to know that our goal is to do the darkest music we can, without being just brutal. Years after years we try some different tricks o find the best solution. With ‘Misanthrope(s)’ it seems that it came with Black Metal riffs, and some heavier and sludgy parts, but maybe for the next one it will be something else. We learn more and more how to be darkly effective.”

Celeste sing in their mother tongue and although I haven’t had the chance of reading the lyrical content of “Misanthrope(s)”, song titles such as “Il y aura des femmes à remercier et de la chair à embrocher” and “Une insomnie avec qui tout le monde voudrait baiser” reveal that the band have a penchant for metaphors.
Can you shed some light on what kind of themes “Misanthrope(s)” deals with lyrically?

“I always sang in French, I feel more confident with my mother tongue, furthermore it simply seems normal to me to sing this way. I’m glad that you appreciate it, I’m always wondering how it sounds for someone who doesn’t know a French word… I just hope it doesn’t make people hate our music.
The translations are unfortunately not available. My English is not good enough to translate my lyrics, and I didn’t find someone to do it correctly. As our album titles let you guess, I only deal with dark topics, mostly about rape, paedophilia, and incest… the other main topics are Religion and War. I also deal with our contemporary way of life. What inspires me is mostly hatred.”

More info at: www.weareceleste.com

Read More »