[Cover photo credit to Jake Owens]
UK Death Metal band Celestial Sanctuary has released a video for “Choking On The Rotten Seed.” The track comes from the band’s Visions Of Stagnant Blood EP, recently reissued by Metal Blade Records. The video not only gives new fans a glimpse of their aesthetic and personality, but also introduces historical locations that have shaped their lives.
Comments vocalist/guitarist Thomas Cronin on the video:
The idea behind the video was to introduce ourselves and what we’re about to people who haven’t heard our band yet, and there’s a lot of people out there who haven’t got a fucking clue who we are.
Cronin continues:
“Stylistically, we really just wanted to capture that essence and feeling of discovering your new favorite band on Headbangers Ball at 2:00am. We’re not trying to recreate any particular video or look like we’re of another era, but those videos that have stuck with us are mostly just the bands walking around the town they’re from, playing in some skanky little room or live footage of them doing their thing. Too many bands get caught in the trap of trying to create some fuckin’ viral moment or having something super polished and sleek. I have a career as a music video producer, so we could have easily gone and done something like that straight outta the gate. But we’re just not about that; our music is hard enough as it is, and we have the attitude to go with it. So why not let that shine for now?“
He adds:
“The history of the area we hail from was a big influence on the lyrical content on this release, so for the exterior shots, we didn’t just choose the coolest looking spots; each of them has a significant historical and gory importance… There’s the ruins of the Abbey of St. Edmunds (now Abbey Gardens): During a big battle in East Anglia, King Edmund was pelted with loads of arrows and then beheaded and discarded in the woods like a rotten sack of meat. Legend has it that his body was found being guarded by a wolf. Then there was The Abbey Precinct/Graveyard, which is where a ton of executions took place throughout the years, where thousands of people would come to watch for entertainment, most notably the execution of William Corder who was guilty of the ‘Red Barn Murders.’ It’s also where the executions — or should I say murders — of the witches captured by Matthew Hopkins, ‘Witchfinder General’ took place. And then there’s the last one, Skinner Street. Basically, this is the street where the butchers in the area were based. They’d dump all the ‘unused’ blood out onto the street, which has a bit of an incline, so the blood would flow down this cobbled street and pool at the bottom in the town’s jewelry quarter. So, there’s stories of people wading through stagnant blood and having to put up with the smell of rotten entrails. Half of us grew up in this town, and it’s always just seemed so normal to us – all this gory shit that’s happened over the years.”
CELESTIAL SANCTUARY w/ Employed To Serve, Burner:
4/24/2025 Clwb Ifor Bach – Cardiff, GB
4/25/2025 O2 Academy Islington – London, GB
5/03/2025 Incineration Fest – London, GB ^
6/06/2025 Mystic Festival – Gdańsk, PL ^
8/01/2025 Dortmund Death Fest – Dortmund, DE ^
8/15/2025 Reload Festival – Sulingen, DE ^
8/16/2025 Dynamo Metalfest – Eindhoven, NL ^
8/30/2025 Doomsday Fest – Brighton, GB ^
^ – Festival Date
