Celtic Frost Monotheist CD

"Belief in one god," suggests the title of Celtic Frost's comeback album, MONOTHEIST. For fans of the groundbreaking Swiss death/thrash metal outfit, that statement is better understood as "Belief in one band." Celtic Frost are the absolute deity of dark metal, and the band returned in 2006 to reclaim what it so rightfully deserved, following experiments and folly both daring and unsuccessful. Tom G. Warrior and company lay waste to a dense, moody, cathartic collection of songs, finding new inspiration in both their old works as well as elements of the early-2000s metal scene they helped inspire. Relentlessly grim and spiritually foreboding, MONOTHEIST marks a powerful return to form for Celtic Frost.

Celtic Frost's much anticipated 2006 comeback album, Monotheist, is everything you'd expect from the band who managed to attach the term avant-garde to ugly ol' heavy metal. It's unconventional, unpredictable, challenging to a fault, head-scratchingly weird at times, frequently brilliant, and anything but perfect. A simplified stylistic description would have it pegged as some sort of modern gothic doom album, but simple descriptions have never really fit the bill with Celtic Frost -- whether relating to their greatest triumphs, like To Mega Therion and Into the Pandemonium, or abject disasters like the infamous Cold Lake -- and Monotheist is no different. The shared weight of the band's hallowed legacy and inevitably tall expectations don't exactly help the album's inauspicious start, either. Despite an energetic burst of old-school blackened thrash, opener "Progeny" stands out mostly thanks to those recognizable CF qualities: Thomas Gabriel Warrior's muscular rasp, crusty and brutal guitar tone; and the ensuing "Ground" bores down on interminably ponderous riffs and tediously repetitive lyrics ("Oh, God, why have you forsaken me!") just long enough to leave one seriously worried. Luckily what the trio (currently comprising founding members Warrior and Martin Eric Ain, plus new drummer Franco Sesa) can't quite realize through brute, stultifying force, they ultimately accomplish via subtler means. A foreboding, instantaneously infectious melody threads its way through even the heaviest portions of "A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh," and haunting female voices duet with Warrior's alternately deadpan and surprisingly fragile, quavering tones over gothic stunners like "Drown in Ashes" (featuring well-placed synthesizers) and the very unusual (even for this album, even for Celtic Frost) "Obscured," where a semi-industrial ambience actually recalls Berlin-era Bowie! Several subsequent tracks carry on suffering from excessively tiresome doom droning, but almost invariably contain that unexpected twist (like the clanging of rusty bells that introduce "Os Abysmi Vel Daath") or clever bridge ("Domain of Decay") to make them special, or at the very least interesting. And with the ambitious closing triptych comprising the cyclopean vistas and terrifying shrieks of "Totengott," the marriage of harmony and feedback across the 14-minute "Synagoga Satanae,"

Celtic Frost: Tom Gabriel Fischer, Franco Sesa, Erol Unala, Martin Eric Ain.

Personnel: Tom Gabriel Fischer (vocals, guitar, programming); Martin Eric Ain (vocals, bass guitar); Erol Unala (guitar, programming); Franco Sesa (drums, percussion).

Audio Mixers: Tom Gabriel Fischer; Peter Tägtgren; Walter J.W. Schmid; Philipp Schweidler.

Liner Note Authors: Tom Gabriel Fischer; Martin Eric Ain.

Recording information: Apollyon Sun Bunker, Zurich Switzerland (2002-2005); Celtic Frost Bunker, Zurich, Switzerland (2002-2005); Department Of Noize, Kilchberg, Switzerland (2002-2005); FSK-18, Winterthur, Switzerland (2002-2005); Horus Sound Studio, Hanover, Germany (2002-2005); Oakland Recording, Winterthur, Switzerland (2002-2005); Transmutation, Thalwil, Switzerland (2002-2005).

Author: Sun Tzu.

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.Spin (p.83) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[It's] amazing how contemporary and brilliantly savage MONOTHEIST sounds. Leaning as much on noise punk's guitar as metal's rage..."
Q (p.118) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "Unrelenting in its intensity, Monotheist condenses their experimental spirit into dense, enigmatic slabs of noise."
Alternative Press (p.212) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "Celtic Frost have retained their best material, and wedded it to contemporary methods of sonic brutalization, returning at full strength."
CMJ (p.24) - "[T]he pair updates their signature death-thrash sound by lacing their sinister songs with sludgy riffs and cavernous vocals."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.104) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "MONOTHEIST is a dark rock masterpiece built on an epic scale....No other metal band, past or present, could have pulled this off."