(Last month Burning World Records (an affiliate of Roadburn Records) released Mysterium III, the newest album by the Dutch band Celestial Season, and a box set of all three Mysterium albums under the name Orbis Mysterium. Long in advance of the release Comrade Aleks conducted an interview with vocalist Stefan Ruiters which we finally present today.)

Celestial Season from the Netherlands was one of the really successful death-doom bands in the early ’90s. They didn’t reach the status of the UK Three, but the debut album Forever Scarlet Passion (1993) and, more importantly, the sophomore full-length Solar Lovers (1995) made their reputation with some interesting out-of-the-genre experiments. Blurred videos for ‘Decamerone’ and ‘Solar Child’ were a blast!

But the guys chose to change the direction dramatically towards stoner/doom stuff, and that led Celestial Season to lose their positions and disband in 2001. The band was brought back to life in 2011, but after a few efforts they didn’t release anything new until 2020, when the first album in twenty years, The Secret Teachings, saw the light of day. Since then, the band has regenerated almost entirely to the full original lineup and released two more albums in the vein of their early material – Mysterium I and Mysterium II. These albums embody beautiful and deep melancholic death-doom metal with growls, cello, and violin.

But what I need to tell you is that the band has Mysterium III on their schedule. Stefan Ruiters has growled in Celestial Season since 1991 to 1995, and rejoined the band in 2020. He answered our questions tonight.

Well… tonight… That “tonight” happened somewhere in November 2023, as the Mysterium III release date was scheduled for December 2023. But as far as I know, Roadburn Records had problems with the vinyl plant, so the  release was delayed, and the album will see the light of day on May 17th, 2024. Okay, it was worth waiting for anyway. Continue reading »