{"id":375795,"date":"2026-01-17T20:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T20:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/375795\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T20:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T20:34:07","slug":"review-celestial-shadows-the-wheel-and-the-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/375795\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Celestial Shadows – The Wheel and the Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Published by Andy<\/a> on January 17, 2026January 17, 2026<\/p>\n

\"\"No artist credited \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

Style: Black metal, experimental black metal (Harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Mayhem, Trh\u00e4, Venom
Country: Australia
Release date: 1 January 2026<\/p>\n

Fridays are a mini holiday for me every week. I wake up full of verve and instantly add a dozen new albums to try. Like my dad says \u201ceven the worst day of fishing is better than the best day at the office,\u201d I say \u201ceven the worst new music day is better than the best not new music release day.\u201d Fridays are the day music comes out\u2014it\u2019s glorious and a natural fact of life. Some artists are quirky, though, and like to release on their own accord to be special. Every year, a slew of new releases come out on January 1st and Halloween (assuming the 6\/7ths of the time they aren\u2019t on a Friday). Good for you, you\u2019ve made yourself just a little cooler than waiting until Friday, January 2nd. Celestial Shadows, solo project of Perth black metal scene veteran Benjamin Penfold-Marwick, released their eighth album, The Wheel and the Fire, on January 1st. How original.<\/p>\n

Despite labeling himself as \u201cexperimental\u201d on Bandcamp, Celestial Shadows\u2019s track structures and riffs are wholly unoriginal, taking every cue straight from second wave black metal; I\u2019m not offended by boring, overabused riffs, but I am taken aback by the insult to my intelligence. Did Penfold-Marwick think I wouldn\u2019t notice that this wasn\u2019t experimental? The guitars play blandly tremolo\u2019d lines in 4\/4 time, shifting chords up and down in various triads and lots of tritones. Although The Wheel and the Fire is largely played in moody minor keys like thousands of black metal albums before it, \u201cGlorious Squalor\u201d throws in a synth and a bit of a major progression\u2014quite the exciting divergence! The following track, \u201cDarklight,\u201d has one of the only passably good riffs on the album, but even that is only going down a scale four notes at a time, twice in a row. Occasionally, Celestial Shadows transition from bland black metal to bland slightly blackened death metal (\u201cCape Arid,\u201d \u201cWarped Mind\u201d), but it\u2019s only noticeable if you haven\u2019t yet lost your mind from the banality of it all. And while the riffs are okay, the rest of the package is amateur as hell; in particular, the track endings are janky. Intro \u201cThe Wheel\u201d has a nonsensical half second fadeout before disappearing and starting the next song; and the album ends with superfluous ambient into a false ending, and then a soundclip of a crackling campfire.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

However, I should address the elephant in the room: The Wheel and the Fire may have the worst vocals of any metal album ever. I could probably enlist a scientist or priest to help prove this sentiment scientifically, but lacking the resources to hire them, you\u2019ll have to take my word for it. They\u2019re sibilant yet take up all the room in your skull; they sound like they were recorded next door; they are electronically inhuman, full of endless reverb. The lyrics are apparently sci-fi inspired, but they\u2019re so obscured by the vocals as to be unintelligible. The hideous noises that Penfold-Marwick tries to pass off as a human voice are more headache-inducingly terrible than any harsh noise record, and perhaps Stalaggh<\/a> might reform to have Penfold-Marwick record with the screaming asylum patients. Or maybe the vocals are the experiment Celestial Shadows advertised\u2014I\u2019ve certainly never heard anything like them. I\u2019ll realistically remember nothing from this record three days from now except the miserable awfulness of the vocals\u2014those I\u2019ll remember for a lifetime as among the worst ever.<\/p>\n

God may exist since The Wheel and the Fire is blessedly only thirty-eight minutes long, but that mark is also hard to believe. Surviving the excruciatingly awful vocals for more than one verse takes an ungodly amount of patience, and the record may as well be an eternity. I cannot understand how somebody could listen to his vocals and enjoy this album. Solo black metal isn\u2019t usually synonymous with quality (of course, there are exceptions), but Celestial Shadows is really scraping the bottom of the barrel.<\/p>\n

Recommended tracks: Glorious Squalor, Darklight, Water\u2019s Edge and the Fire
You may also like: Void of Nothingness, Enopolis<\/a>, Gonemage<\/a>, Stalaggh
Final verdict: 2\/10<\/p>\n

Related links: Bandcamp<\/a><\/p>\n

Label: Rassilon Records<\/a> <\/p>\n

Celestial Shadows is:
\u2013 Benjamin Penfold-Marwick (everything)
With guests:
\u2013 Daniel Coombs (drums)<\/p>\n

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