Last time I went to Merleyn there was lots of snow and so it took me over 2 hours to get there. This time it only took an hour and a half or so. Much more comfortable. The reason to go there was simple Celestial Season. They were invited to play the roadburn festival this year performing their entire second album Solar Lovers. Imo this is still one of the best doom / death metal albums around. So it was the effort to check them out for this try-out gig. There were no support acts, which is a bit peculiar. When I entered the venue the band was still soundchecking and playing a couple of songs already. Unfortunately the band wasn’t in the complete lineup of the album, with a new drummer, singer and strings section, but the guitarists and bass player where there.

The set list was of course a bit predictable – the entire Solar Lovers album. So they just started with Decamerone on a stage that was quite full with no less than 7 musicians. The sound needed some finetuning as not all the instruments were all that clear. Particularly the violin and cello were a bit down in the mix. Considering that the material is more than 15 years old and I guess they hadn’t played it for many years, it sounded quite good and just few mistakes. They even managed to include the acoustic intermezzo’s of the album, as well as one of the best covers ever recorded – Vienna (originally by Ultravox). After the final The Scent of Eve that was is – so where was A Tune From The Majestic Queen’s Garden? Anyway. For an encore two songs of the debut album were played – Cherish My Pain and The Merciful. So it was pretty cool to see this band again after so many years since their tour with Nightfall in 1994.