Celtic Frost improbably shred like it's '84 on dazzling comeback, MontheistMy demeanor was not unlike that of a giggling schoolgirl when I first received the new Celtic Frost album Monotheist. In fact, if I had a MySpace page, this six-foot-tall, 220-pound schoolgirl would have put all others to shame with the breathless apprehension and excitement of my latest blog entry: OMG! Celtic Frost! Wutz it gona sound lik im gunna dye!!??
Andwutzitgunnasoundlik? Staggeringly good. Monotheist is, without a doubt, the album Celtic Frost were born to make, and it was well worth the wait. This, the bands first disc since 1990s love-it-or-hate-it Vanity/Nemesisor, by Frost main man Tom Fischers arithmetic, the first real CF album since 1987s Into the Pandemonium (he pretty much discounts the Cold Lake and Vanity/Nemesis periods of glam/hard rock/metal fusion with an eh, I was tired, what are you gonna do? shrug, though those albums certainly have their charms and fans)encapsulates everything that ever worked on a CF album. The fury and darkness of Morbid Tales. The depth and grand scale of To Mega Therion and the Tragic Serenades EP. The doomed gothic beauty of the more stately tracks on the groundbreaking art-metal full-length, Pandemonium.
Doomed is the operative word for Monotheist. Lots of people will tell you how indebted the black metal and death metal worlds are to CFs sound, but whats sometimes forgotten is how much doom metal owes these Swiss legends. The very first track, Progeny, should help some people remember. Mighty spiraling riffs (the tone on that guitar!) simply lay waste to 20 years of hackneyed Sabbath rip-offs. Fischers vocals are, if anything, even stronger and more feral than in his heydaydeeper, cutting through the muck and mire with laser-like precision. On Ground, that nasty diamond-tipped drill of a guitar, along with Martin Eric Ains bottomless bass roiling underneath, creates a fiery thud of doom-soaked heaviness.
The thick concrete slabs of guitar noise on some tracks, such as A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh, give the album a mechanized and industrial feel, but the pace and mood overall is mid-tempo blackness. Tense and coiled, Drown in Ashes is ready to strike, the beauty of the keening female vocals offset by the rumbling and buzzing underfoot. Domain of Decay is straight-up goth metal grandeur, the greatest Type O Negative song youve never heard. The unholy skree of a guitar solo on Obscured lasts about six seconds and I think I was put on earth to hear this sound. Every song is rich in detail and sonic brilliance (thanks Peter Tägtgren!) and the highlights are many. Toten Gott is a serious thrash attack that explodes like a gasoline bomb into feedback and primal scream therapy. Theres a break in the middle of the song Os Abysmi Vel Daath that leads down a hole to the center of the earth where demons do dance, and lemmetellya, its a humdinger.
The whole friggin blasted album is. Fuckin masterpiece, dude. No lie. Ive been blasting the new Sodom and Celtic Frost albums for weeks like its 1984, and this leads me to a question: hey Slayer, what ya got for us? Balls in your court, old timers! Scott Seward
