I'm honoured to open up the official thread for the Swiss Metal Gods, Celtic Frost. This band is arguably one of the most influential in the development of modern forms of Extreme Metal. They never stagnated, weren't afraid to experiment, and to this day remain committed to pioneering new ground. This is evident in their newest release, 'Monotheist', their first after a 14-year hiatus.

Anything that relates to this great band, its members and their releases, can be said in this thread.

To get started, I'm going to post my thoughts on 'Monotheist'. I got it yesterday, and after a few listens (it takes more than 1 to digest it fully) the musical scope has really hit me in the face. It might not be as revolutionary as their 80s masterpieces ('Morbid Tales', 'To Mega Therion', 'Into the Pandemonium') but it is much more focused in it's direction. 'Morbid Tales' and 'To Mega Therion' were full of a raw, primal rage, while 'Into the Pandemonium' sprawled into multiple genres, with each song having a unique take on things, but 'Monotheist', while a weighty 73 mins, is much slower, darker and dirge-like. The sound can IMO be described as a Doom-filled Death Metal, with Ambient and Industrial touches here and there. It's very hard to explain, you must hear it for yourself.

Comments anyone?

I like Celtic Frost for 2 reasons. First of all they are an awsome Black/Thrash Metal band. and secondly, They are part of the first Black Metal movement who pioneered Black Metal.

Their older stuff was some of the greatest album of all-time in my opinion but their later compilations and remixes was complete shit!
I am very pleased to ear that they released another full lenght album. I haven't heard Monotheist yet but I am hoping for the best...

Anybody who heard the album tell me about it?

I've got Monotheist but haven't given it a listen yet. I should though because the band are doing a one~off gig in London in August, supported by Cryptopsy and Gorerotted (killer lineup). Their old albums are influential over the extreme genre (songs like 'Circle Of Tyrants' being covered several times shows this). Excluding the latest which I haven't heard yet, To Mega Therion is my favourite album.

Good to see them putting out new material after so many years.

Morbid Tales is the reason I like Celtic Frost,its sound is so original.There was no one else is the music industry like them at the time.If you like Black Metal get Morbid Tales and you wont be dissapointed.I especially enjoy Tom's vocals,he always starts off with a good ahhh!Dethroned Emperor is my fav. song,even though it was originally on the emperor's Return I have the re-issue,I especially like the drum work and guitar solo in that song.

CF's early, extreme metal period was definitely influential but personally I find their experimental side that manifested itself on Into The Pandemonium far more interesting and worthwile. Its incredible how many trends they anticipated with that album...
Of course, their next album, "Cold Lake" was the "Into The Unknown" of extreme metal.... (thats Bad Religion, do your homework, peeps)

I still need to pick up 'To Mega-Therion' and 'Into the Pandemonium', but I absolutely love 'morbid tale/emperor's return'

Thanks to a stormer who will remain nameless, i do have an mp3 copy of Celtic Frost covering one of my favorite 80's songs ever, Wall of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio", was freaking hilarious - a riot to sing along to.

I'm awaiting some reviews on "Monotheist" before I purchase.

@Bitter Cold... yeah, that cover song of Mexican Radio is among the catchiest shit ever... I don't know the original song by the cover rules hehehe... it's the opening track for "Into The Pandemonium"

about To Mega Therion, it's my favourite... incredibly strong and original stuff, the vocals are extraordinary... I had never like their debut album though....

About their new album "Monotheist", finding it great, is unnecessary... just did not produce anything on me, it was like... "blurp... I'm supposed to like this one, but just don't shock me"... same happened actually with the new shot by Venom and Sodom.

"yeah, that cover song of Mexican Radio is among the catchiest shit ever... "


I remember when i first heard it. I didnt realise it was a cover and was like "this is an odd song for Celtic Frost to play but it kicks ass!"

Written by Guest on 02.06.2006 at 12:32

"yeah, that cover song of Mexican Radio is among the catchiest shit ever... "


I remember when i first heard it. I didnt realise it was a cover and was like "this is an odd song for Celtic Frost to play but it kicks ass!"

Yeah that is a weird cover for them,it reminds of the cover Amorphis did:"Light My Fire" by the Doors.I that they'd be the last artist to do that song.

Written by BitterCOld on 02.06.2006 at 02:55

I still need to pick up 'To Mega-Therion' and 'Into the Pandemonium', but I absolutely love 'morbid tale/emperor's return'

Thanks to a stormer who will remain nameless, i do have an mp3 copy of Celtic Frost covering one of my favorite 80's songs ever, Wall of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio", was freaking hilarious - a riot to sing along to.

I'm awaiting some reviews on "Monotheist" before I purchase.

There's a review on MS, weritten by Jupitreas if i remeber it right.

I haven't got my hand on the new release yet. I'm waiting for something original and interestning, let's see.

Written by Guest on 05.06.2006 at 15:52

Written by BitterCOld on 02.06.2006 at 02:55

I still need to pick up 'To Mega-Therion' and 'Into the Pandemonium', but I absolutely love 'morbid tale/emperor's return'

Thanks to a stormer who will remain nameless, i do have an mp3 copy of Celtic Frost covering one of my favorite 80's songs ever, Wall of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio", was freaking hilarious - a riot to sing along to.

I'm awaiting some reviews on "Monotheist" before I purchase.

There's a review on MS, weritten by Jupitreas if i remeber it right.

I haven't got my hand on the new release yet. I'm waiting for something original and interestning, let's see.

There is indeed a review already on here, and it rates the album very highly indeed. I share that opinion, and if you are like Markku, and want something original and interesting, then 'Monotheist' will satisfy. There are still a few of those thrashy, aggressive songs on this album (e.g. the first track, "Progeny") but it's mostly been slowed down and darkened to give this totally death-and-doom filled atmosphere.

There are quite a lot of really depressive clean vocals on this album (courtesy of Martin Eric Ain), and some of the songs even go so far into the atmosphere thing as to sound somewhat Ambient in sections. If you downloaded the rough mix of "Ground" from their website earlier, that song is quite different in it's complete form, and is also very good.

The album can get oppressively dark and ultimately too heavy and get bogged down, but it does have lighter touches here and there that still maintain a depressive atmosphere, but do enough to stop it getting repetitively dark.

My final verdict is a 9/10. The only reason it's not a 10 is because of the length (-.5) and the slight over-heaviness (-.5). If you like Death Metal, Black Metal, Doom Metal, Industrial Metal, Ambient or just great atmospheric albums then go and buy this now.

cool, I had looked for a review early, and hadn't gone back to check again... which is why I must have missed Jupe's review.

Sounds interesting enough between your post and his review that I will be picking it up.

Early Celtic Frost is great stuff.. Morbid Tales, Emperor's Return and To Mega Therion are classic releases, packed with good songs and a strange morbid but accessible feel. There's also an (unofficial) CD of Celtic Frost's early demo material, which is worth checking out to hear a much more raw, primitive version of some of those songs.

As for the new Celtic Frost album - I doubt I'll bother with it. I've heard one song from it, and it was absolutely awful. Supposedly, the 'new Celtic Frost' is daring, stimulating, unique and challenging, but it just sounded to me like an aging once-great metal band trying to appeal to the metalcore kids and playing literally the worst 'riff' I've ever heard.

Written by Richard on 07.06.2006 at 21:04

Early Celtic Frost is great stuff.. Morbid Tales, Emperor's Return and To Mega Therion are classic releases, packed with good songs and a strange morbid but accessible feel. There's also an (unofficial) CD of Celtic Frost's early demo material, which is worth checking out to hear a much more raw, primitive version of some of those songs.

As for the new Celtic Frost album - I doubt I'll bother with it. I've heard one song from it, and it was absolutely awful. Supposedly, the 'new Celtic Frost' is daring, stimulating, unique and challenging, but it just sounded to me like an aging once-great metal band trying to appeal to the metalcore kids and playing literally the worst 'riff' I've ever heard.

I agree,I'm a big fan of their early albums,but thats it.None of there other albums appeal to me.It is the same for Anthrax,I love their first three albums and thats it.

They got a new album called Monotheist, im sure you have all heard and heard of it. The single Ground is astonishing...and just wanted tell CF kicks azz.

Written by Guest on 08.06.2006 at 06:07

They got a new album called Monotheist, im sure you have all heard and heard of it. The single Ground is astonishing...and just wanted tell CF kicks azz.

Nice to see you took a few moments to read a couple posts before sharing.

As I'm not so long in metal yet, I didn't know this band yet, but I read a very positive article on them. I bought their latest album and I'm convinced. It takes some time to digest it, but once you did digest it, it's worth every second. The previous albums are on my wishlist... (yes, the more albums I buy, the longer this list gets )

I really love this band, I can almost say nothing but good things, but I'll start with the bad. First of all, To Mega Therion, while it has some really killer songs, it has a lot of filler and is frankly, quite boring, even though I like the heavy sound they got on there, which is pretty impressive for 1985. It does however shows off Reed St Mark's great ability, and I consider it a "warm up" album for Into The Pandemonium, althought it just carries over very few elements. Cold Lake is bad, yes, but I consider Warrior's project Apollyon Sun to be way worse, also dragging down the great song writer and drummer from Coroner with him and his overly pompus side project. For some reason Cold Lake was labeled under the CF name even though the main band besides Tom was gone!

Even though I consider Into The Pandemonium to be their best by far, I actually love Morbid Tales, I just have sentiment for it. The first extreme metal album I actually enjoyed a lot. It's just really fun, and again, very heavy for it's time. Out of all those extreme metal proto bands of their time, CF had the most consistent and enjoyable album. But they just completely outdid themselves on Into The Pandemonium, really, if they never made this album only black metallers would even know this band. That album made them the huge influence they are. Instead of influencing one genre, they did it all over. Frankly though, I could really care less about the influence, it's just a great album from start to finish. I Won't Dance got stuck in my head the first time I heard it, 3 years later (now) it's still there. God! Is being super catchy innovative? Cos I think they did that there as well.

I also think Vanity/Nemesis is a completely overlooked album, it's really great actually, too bad it couldn't recover the band from thier infamous Cold Lake incident, but what could?

I finally picked up Monotheist. It's certainly one of the strongest "comeback" albums I've heard in a long while - not because they were rehashing an old sound, but were actually putting something a bit different to the table. I'm really digging this "Doomier" Celtic Frost.

I am enjoying it as well. I like the way it seems fo flow with more tradtional CF openers, before swerving into "Doom Avenue" and ultimately ending up with some avant garde type metal... "Synogoga Satanae" is fucking creepy.

Xandria's lead singer Lisa did guest vocals on the new Celtic Frost album. Not too bad.

Celtic ! Man ! I agree with all you motherfuckers this band really kicks ass due to it's Swiss Metal ... Man swiss it one of my favorite stuff!
I got their new shit... good album...
I give it a 8.5...
Favorite tracks R : Ground - Domain Of Decay-Totengott
Stay Extreme People!
Iiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaooooo

The album "Vanity Nemesis" doesnt get a mention on this thread which i feel is a very good album and extremely underrated.....
A great comeback from a rather disgusting "Cold Lake".....

I just saw them at Wacken. i've never experienced such a dark, powerful sound and atmosphere...

definately THE band of the weekend!
I mostly stick with Morbid Tales/Emperor's Return and To Mega Therion (like most people I guess?)

Saw 'Monotheist' in shop and now that i know that they are a black/thrash band i'll check it out. Only have heard a couple of songs and thought they were strong tracks ... been a bit lazy to check the rest of there stuff to be honest, but i'll give it a listen.

Ah yes Celtic Frost,one of metal's most legendary bands. These guys are amazing,To Megatherion is one of my favorite albums. I however didnt care much for their new album....

Written by Xtreme Jax on 10.08.2006 at 07:40

Saw 'Monotheist' in shop and now that i know that they are a black/thrash band i'll check it out. Only have heard a couple of songs and thought they were strong tracks ... been a bit lazy to check the rest of there stuff to be honest, but i'll give it a listen.

If you're expecting black thrash better check out some of their first releases

Written by Guest on 10.08.2006 at 12:32

Written by Xtreme Jax on 10.08.2006 at 07:40

Saw 'Monotheist' in shop and now that i know that they are a black/thrash band i'll check it out. Only have heard a couple of songs and thought they were strong tracks ... been a bit lazy to check the rest of there stuff to be honest, but i'll give it a listen.

If you're expecting black thrash better check out some of their first releases

Aaah ok then thanks. What style is 'Monotheist' then? Still Black/Thrash or just not as strong as the older ones?

I haven't heard it but I've read some reviews. Check the review by Jupitreas here in MS.

Hmm, yeah just read it. Seems to be some mix opinions there, more saying its good though. I'll have to give it a sample in the store to tell i reckon.