Boethiah - Celestial Gateway

Boethiah

Celestial Gateway

by Kyle Scott at 06 October 2018, 7:01 PM

BOETHIAH felt like the Sci Fi genre was woefully incomplete without Death Metal. So, they naturally combined the two, and lo, it was like peanut butter and chocolate; two already great things coming together to form an even greater thing! Celestial Gateway is BOETHIAH's third EP and it comes at the tail end of their full-length debut Invocation of the Xenolith released this year. BOETHIAH's death-filled space journey that is Celestial Gateway is a new epic for the ages.

Insidious alien voices viciously taunt and whisper mysterious threats over a starship's blaring warning system in "Approaching the Gateway". One can only imagine how or why the gateway even formed, but its call to the other side, despite the clear threats of those living beyond its portal, is hard to ignore. Celestial Gateway's whole tracklist tells the Lovecraftian tale of mankind plumbing the vast unknown reaches of the cosmos, only to go mad when they find ancient horrors beyond their imagining. It's The Mountains of Madness set in space.

There are churning chords and basslines that bleed into the riffs, notes melting into each other like your sense of time and reality as the space madness sets in. The madness begins in "Charting the Unknown" Sean Benson's humbling vocals rumble like a furious blade sawing though lead pipes against plodding, Sci Fi B movie-inspired riffs. Over time, the grip of loneliness and unknown horrors real or imagined worsens, and you end up "Succumbing to the Maelstrom" and witness the absolute horror of helplessly watching your DNA unravel as you become nothing.

There are droning synths and wailing guitars with razor-edged notes, Celestial Gateway drags you further down into a decaying mind collapsing from the inside. "Beneath the Mist" is where secrets are finally revealed and the true nature of where the horrors are born and bred are known. The story that BOETHIAH weaves is a dark and unimaginably horrific one. Whatever beasts lie in wait in the cold, vacuum of space, they no doubt whispered all their dark secrets to a small, Death Metal band as a dire warning.

Songwriting: 10
Originality: 9
Memorability: 8
Production: 10