With their unique mix of black metal, sludge, and post-hardcore, and over 500 shows played since their inception in 2005, CELESTE has cemented their status as one of France’s most important underground acts.
Last month, they unleashed their new long-player Assassine(s), produced by Chris Edrich (GOJIRA, TESSERACT, THE OCEAN, LEPROUS). The band have been breaking the outer boundaries of heavy music for over fifteen years, ever since they evolved out of Lyon’s celebrated hardcore punk scene. When they began, their music was absolutely brutal, a mission in search of the heaviest sound you could imagine.
Despite the fact it harnessed the blistering power of black metal and post-hardcore, it was entirely its own beast, pushing way beyond the limits of those genres’ cliches and tropes to arrive at something entirely unique. Extremity on their own terms.
Montreal Rocks caught up with vocalist/bassist Johan Girardeau to find out how things have been since the release.
“We were super stressed because for us it was a big leap,” Girardeau admits over Zoom. “I mean this album, what we’ve done for it, the way we’ve written, all the experimentation we’ve done on that album we felt like, okay, maybe our core fans won’t like it, of course there were people a bit disappointed, but mainly the reactions were amazing, really amazing. And also all the reviews in the press. I wouldn’t imagine a better reaction so far.”
Johan says the aim for the band was “to do some fucking violent music, the bleakest we could imagine.”
Assassine(s) is their first release for Nuclear Blast and delivers on that promise in monumental fashion with 41 minutes of crushing riffs and agonizing screams full of emotion and anguish. But the record sees Celeste moving in a more melodic direction and experimenting with their sound.
“There are some lead guitars that we’ve never done before. I remember when I did propose for this album the first lead guitars, it was on the instrumental song, (A) which is full of lead guitars. And that’s the perfect example. I’ve written this song fully and then show it to my friends. And I was surprised that they were like, okay, that’s a good idea, it should be on in the album. And then it opened our minds to bring some lead guitars to our songs and actually, there are lead guitars in every song now. And that was a great improvement for us. And it’s a really good thing also since we want to develop melodies, bringing in lead guitars is a way to cross melodies to bring harmonization to the stuff which was a really, really nice thing for us.”
The visual side of Celeste has always been a major factor in how the band express themselves and their art. Black & white photography and cinematic images combine to create an aesthetic that mirrors the music they’re creating. Johan has always seen this as part of the whole package.
“I do take care of all the art direction,” he says. “I don’t do the pictures myself. I work with photographers, but they are my ideas that I try to develop with the help of the people I’m working with. And to be honest, since the very first day I had some kind of vision for the band when we started out. I really didn’t know we would last for so long. I’m really grateful for that, by the way. But I was like, okay, music is something, but you can bring many aspects around the music to give you a lot more emotions to bring the interest. I also like when people try to interpret our stuff, I mean, what we propose is not only music, it is some kind of art form, so there’s the music, there’s the artwork, there’s the album title, there are the lyrics. And the idea is to make all of them stick together and to have an album that is kind of art piece. And then our discography is also an artistic portfolio, you know? And I want everything to make sense altogether, you know, because I think it’s really interesting if a listener can also try to care, not only about one album but when you see an album cover and you see another one and you feel a link, then you’re teased, you know, you want to see what’s going on next or what’s happening before, because of course today there are many people discovering us especially thanks to the help of Nuclear Blast. Even if someone doesn’t speak French, there’s still a language by the music and the artwork itself.”
Celeste are about to get back on the road, touring with labelmates Conjurer but Johan says they’re keen to make it this side of the Atlantic soon.
“We’ve been in contact many times with people from Montreal. We definitely want to come there because we know we have some French-speaking people who are waiting for us. And also of course the US and Canada are big markets by themselves, but we know from the Spotify stats that a lot of people from over there listening to us, so it would be nice to come over there.”
You can watch the full interview with Johan Girardeau below:
Assassine(s) is out now via Nuclear Blast
