Dutch death/doom doyens Celestial Season coulda been contenders. They were around in the crucial days of this style of music’s commercial infancy, contemporaries of you-know-who, but for reasons that have never really been made clear they failed to get on with the job in hand and became a footnote in metal history. Like so many of this ilk, they’ve returned to the fray decades after the fact, with a well-received comeback album emerging a couple of years back – which brings you bang up to date and ready for some Mysterium…

In the cold light of day, it looks at first listen that Celestial Season have decided to take no chances with Mysterium I, falling back to a default setting of doing what they do well, well, with little or no thought for expanding the territory they work in. That’s fine of course – I’m as ready to submerge myself in some quality doom/death as the next man – but at times you find yourself wishing this grim-faced septet would just try and surprise a little.

I’m not talking about electric shock devices concealed in mischievous palms, obviously, but there are moments when singer Stefan Ruiters, for instance, resolutely entrenched in his death metal talk singing to the last, could reap real benefits for all concerned with just a little vocal variation. A man can dream…

But for all that, the mournful likes of The Golden Light of Late Day really do hit the spot, tugging at the heartstrings thanks to some truly lacrimose guitar work from Olly Smit and Pim Van Zanen; as the axes fade from electric to acoustic at song’s end the listener is filled with genuine feelings of loss and desolation, a result for the band in real terms even if old cynics like me might clamour for something a little different.

In the final washup, if you are happy to accept the doom/death norm, it’s difficult to see how anything here would disappoint. Jiska ter Bals and Elianne Anemaat form a formidable string accompaniment to the less fragile axe attack – when all four mesh together in the mid section of Sundown Transcends Us you may well have to hold on to something solid to save yourself from losing control completely – and, if ‘enjoyment’ isn’t quite the word to apply to a piece of art so relentlessly morose, it is a feeling you’ll get repeatedly as you immerse yourself in the album.

Mysterium I is out now.