Produced by Celtic Frost
Released: 2006
Five years in the making, when Celtic Frost finally unveiled its comeback album, it's pretty clear no one knew quite what to expect: would it be a return to the primitive blackened thrashings of the early 80s or the experimentation of Into the Pandemonium? Or would it be something else? As it turned out, it was something else, and what a monster it is! For over 68 minutes, the band slowly unfurls a masterpiece of cold, stark malevolence that will be difficult to surpass. Make no mistake, Monotheist may well be one of the most evil and terrifying albums ever recorded.
Right from the very beginning, it's clear that this is not one for the faint-hearted. The deceptively minimalistic, plodding guitars of Tom G. Fischer and Erol Unala provide a bleak skeleton for haunting sound scapes that ooze malice and decay. "Progeny" opens the album with a swathe of feedback and a chugging riff, Fischer's indistinct, tortured vocals immediately evoking a sense of the hatred and despair to come. The central themes of Monotheist are death, decay and the degradation of religion and Celtic Frost never wavers from its path. Almost every track is enveloped in an atmosphere of a calculated evil that is rarely found outside of the minds of serial killers.
"Drown in Ashes" is the one exception, a melodic Goth metal track featuring Xanthia's Lisa Middlehauve that seems almost strangely out of place with drummer Franco Sesa providing some polyrhythmic work that gives it an almost poppish vibe amid the morbidity of the rest of the album. This oddly accessible diversion is only brief however, as Monotheist becomes increasingly more sinister and desolate as it progresses. With "Os Abysmi vel Daath" the band revisits the dark teachings of one of their original influences, the 20th Century's most infamous occultists, Aleister Crowley. In an appropriately nasty fashion, the song is built on a stuttering, cascading riff with Fischer intoning the lyrics as if reading from some forbidden text.
The album eventually culminates in a vast, 29-minute "triptych" of sheer malevolence and evil. Even sitting in a brightly-lit office wasn't enough to stop the shivers in my spine as Martin Ain's eerie "Totengott" crept forth like a voice from beyond the grave. Yet this is merely a genuinely creepy introduction to the immense "Synagoga Satanae", where Celtic Frost weaves all of the album's elements together in a grand invocation of wickedness, complete with choral arrangements, spells uttered in a malicious whisper and vocal contributions by Satyr from Satyricon and Peter Tägtgren among others. It is a spectacular climax to a brilliantly conceived if disturbing excursion into the macabre that leaves virtually all others working in the same vein absolutely cold.
Released: 2006
Five years in the making, when Celtic Frost finally unveiled its comeback album, it's pretty clear no one knew quite what to expect: would it be a return to the primitive blackened thrashings of the early 80s or the experimentation of Into the Pandemonium? Or would it be something else? As it turned out, it was something else, and what a monster it is! For over 68 minutes, the band slowly unfurls a masterpiece of cold, stark malevolence that will be difficult to surpass. Make no mistake, Monotheist may well be one of the most evil and terrifying albums ever recorded.
Right from the very beginning, it's clear that this is not one for the faint-hearted. The deceptively minimalistic, plodding guitars of Tom G. Fischer and Erol Unala provide a bleak skeleton for haunting sound scapes that ooze malice and decay. "Progeny" opens the album with a swathe of feedback and a chugging riff, Fischer's indistinct, tortured vocals immediately evoking a sense of the hatred and despair to come. The central themes of Monotheist are death, decay and the degradation of religion and Celtic Frost never wavers from its path. Almost every track is enveloped in an atmosphere of a calculated evil that is rarely found outside of the minds of serial killers.
"Drown in Ashes" is the one exception, a melodic Goth metal track featuring Xanthia's Lisa Middlehauve that seems almost strangely out of place with drummer Franco Sesa providing some polyrhythmic work that gives it an almost poppish vibe amid the morbidity of the rest of the album. This oddly accessible diversion is only brief however, as Monotheist becomes increasingly more sinister and desolate as it progresses. With "Os Abysmi vel Daath" the band revisits the dark teachings of one of their original influences, the 20th Century's most infamous occultists, Aleister Crowley. In an appropriately nasty fashion, the song is built on a stuttering, cascading riff with Fischer intoning the lyrics as if reading from some forbidden text.
The album eventually culminates in a vast, 29-minute "triptych" of sheer malevolence and evil. Even sitting in a brightly-lit office wasn't enough to stop the shivers in my spine as Martin Ain's eerie "Totengott" crept forth like a voice from beyond the grave. Yet this is merely a genuinely creepy introduction to the immense "Synagoga Satanae", where Celtic Frost weaves all of the album's elements together in a grand invocation of wickedness, complete with choral arrangements, spells uttered in a malicious whisper and vocal contributions by Satyr from Satyricon and Peter Tägtgren among others. It is a spectacular climax to a brilliantly conceived if disturbing excursion into the macabre that leaves virtually all others working in the same vein absolutely cold.
- Progeny
- Ground
- A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh
- Drown in Ashes
- Os Abysmi vei Daath
- Obscured
- Domain of Decay
- Ain Elohim
- Totengott
- Synagoga Satanae
- Winter (Requiem, Chapter Three: Finale)
Rating: 96%
No comments:
Post a Comment