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Trollheart · 10-10-2013, 05:31 AM

Monotheist --- Celtic Frost --- 2006 (Century Media)

The final album by a band whose fans believed had sold out on their "Cold lake" album of 1996, came back strongly with Vanity/Nemesis and then broke up but reformed in 2006 to produce just the one album, which they claim is the last they will record and release.

There's a squealing guitar and a big dirty sound to launch us into "Progeny", with a growled but understandable vocal from Thomas "Warrior" Fischer, pounding drumbeat from Franco Sesa and a grindy bass from Martin Eric Ain. Actually, it could be Ain singing, as Fischer is credited as "voice" whereas Ain is shown as "lead (and backing) vocals". Hmm. Very doom metal I would say at this point. Slow but crunching, almost suffocating at times. "Ground" continues the big heavy guitar sound, another slow, crushing track with a very angry vocal which basically runs along the lines of "Oh God! Why have you forsaken me?"

A slow morose bassline then as "A dying god coming into human flesh" changes everything around, almost ambient in its way, dark and melancholic with a very low-key vocal. Some heavy guitar breaks through then and the vocal becomes a screaming growl as the song gets harder and heavier, though no faster. Xandria's Lisa Middlehauve then takes guest vocals for "Drowning in ashes", another downbeat, slow, restrained piece with a dark but clear vocal from either Ain or Fischer on the verses. Middlehauve sounds like an angel trapped in Hell, her clear soft voice rising against the Cave-like growl of I think I have to say it's probably Fischer, though it was Ain on the previous track.

Much of this track is driven by Sesa on the drumstool, and he directs it very well. Guitar from Fischer screeches and rages almost in the background but forms a great backdrop for the two vocalists to perform against. There's supposedly a heavy influence on this album from the work of Aleister Crowley, and "Os abysmi vel daath" is the title of one of his books, another slow grinder with a snarly vocal and equally snarly guitars. Very Black Sabbath, this one. In the fourth minute there's a sound like the earth cracking and dark tortured voices issue forth as if from out of the mouth of Hades itself, Fischer's guitar adding to the cacaphony, then from nowhere the vocal punches back in. Effective, if a little knickers-shittingly-sudden!

"Obscured" is one of the longer tracks, just hitting over the seven minute mark --- though by no means the longest --- and opens on feedback guitar and military drums before the bass kicks in from Ain and a laconic, lazy vocal which is joined by Simone Vollenweider as power chords from the guitar crash over the melody. Here the singing (the male vocal) reminds me more of Andrew Eldritch from Sisters of Mercy, very ominous and dark. There's very much a sense of gothic opera to this song; I'm almost surprised not to hear cello or some sort of orchestral instruments added in here. Great dark atmospherics here, and the double vocal works really well.

A seriously grinding guitar then opens "Domain of decay", which then speeds up for about the first time on the album and sounds a little more thrash than doom, though it then kind of slows back down for the vocal, back up for the guitar riff, down for the vocal, and so on. By the midway point it's kind of settled in to a slow to mid-paced tempo with a serious solo right at the end. The tempo seems to be on the rise though, and "Ain Elohim" rocks along faster than anything Celtic Frost have done on this album so far. Hmm. Considering that "elohim" is a word for god, can it be said that Martin Ain has something of a divinity complex?

This track isn't long about slowing down into the familiar grind though, and the angry, gutteral vocal that these guys utilise is just the right balance for me: tough and snarly but not so much that you can't understand the words being sung. If more "extreme metal" bands sang this way I think I might listen to them more. Oh well. I'm sure they're all just crying into their bank balances.

The album then ends on a three-part, three-track epic called "Triptych". "Triptych I: Totengott" is darkly ominous with deep bass and growling guitar (you would expect keyboards but no) and a scary-sounding screeching voice more or less speaking the vocal, getting more agitated, evil and incomprehensible as it goes on, trailing off in a malevolent laugh as the music takes over. Slow, doomy drumming and scratchy, keening guitar carry the rest of the tune until the voice comes back in with another horrible screech, as if of a creature in pain, or one of pure evil. I wouldn't play this loud late at night I can tell you!

As the voice and music fade out "Triptych II: Synagoga Satanae" (who needs that translated?) opens on a big feedback guitar, and is by far the longest not only of the parts, but of the tracks, clocking in at a massive fourteen and a half minutes. The first two minutes are basically a buildup on the guitar, which then kicks in properly and takes the melody in a slow, dark, doomy rhythm until vocals come in, dark and grindy but nothing as unintelligible as in "Triptych I". About halfway through there's a dark spoken vocal, almost whispered, which is apparently Satyr from Satyricon. I'd have to say fourteen minutes of this is a little hard to take, as there's no real changes in the melody, which is not to say it stays the same all the way but there are not that many sections, as it were, so it seems to just drag on. To me. I guess if this was to be their final album they wanted to go out with a bang, but this just seems stretched beyond the breaking point.

The closer, and third and final part of the trilogy, "Triptych III: Winter (Requiem, Chapter III: Finale") is an instrumental, sounding like it's on violin but I don't see any credited so will assume it's just guitar. Hardly any percussion and a rising, very dramatic and almost classical keening guitar which sounds just like a synth --- maybe it is, and not credited? --- and provides a really classy end to the album.

TRACKLISTING

1. Progeny
2. Ground
3. A dying god coming into human flesh
4. Drown in ashes
5. Os abysmi vel daath
6. Obscured
7. Domain of decay
8. Ain elohim
9. Triptych I: Totengott
10. Triptych II: Synagoga Satanae
11. Triptych III: Winter (Chapter three: Finale)

Definitely at the more epic, gothic end of the spectrum, at least as far as this album is concerned, this is music I could listen to but not necessarily an album I would choose to experience. The musicianship is first rate and the vocals are generally very capable, and there is additionally a sort of sense of dark gothic fantasy running through "Monotheist", parts of which could work very well as a movie or even videogame soundtrack.

No doubt this is not how they always sounded and if I were to dig into previous albums I'd find a totally different band, but as a swansong this album is pretty damn cohesive and I suppose having had basically fourteen years to plan and write it it was going to have to. If the fans were upset about the guys selling out with "Cold lake", then they should be reassured that the glam metal tag that offended them on that album has been well and truly laid to rest on this, and if you need a headstone to mark the grave of Celtic Frost, you would go far to do better than this.

Read more here Celtic Frost - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

10-10-2013, 05:31 AM	#1937 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Monotheist --- Celtic Frost --- 2006 (Century Media) The final album by a band whose fans believed had sold out on their "Cold lake" album of 1996, came back strongly with Vanity/Nemesis and then broke up but reformed in 2006 to produce just the one album, which they claim is the last they will record and release. There's a squealing guitar and a big dirty sound to launch us into "Progeny", with a growled but understandable vocal from Thomas "Warrior" Fischer, pounding drumbeat from Franco Sesa and a grindy bass from Martin Eric Ain. Actually, it could be Ain singing, as Fischer is credited as "voice" whereas Ain is shown as "lead (and backing) vocals". Hmm. Very doom metal I would say at this point. Slow but crunching, almost suffocating at times. "Ground" continues the big heavy guitar sound, another slow, crushing track with a very angry vocal which basically runs along the lines of "Oh God! Why have you forsaken me?" A slow morose bassline then as "A dying god coming into human flesh" changes everything around, almost ambient in its way, dark and melancholic with a very low-key vocal. Some heavy guitar breaks through then and the vocal becomes a screaming growl as the song gets harder and heavier, though no faster. Xandria's Lisa Middlehauve then takes guest vocals for "Drowning in ashes", another downbeat, slow, restrained piece with a dark but clear vocal from either Ain or Fischer on the verses. Middlehauve sounds like an angel trapped in Hell, her clear soft voice rising against the Cave-like growl of I think I have to say it's probably Fischer, though it was Ain on the previous track. Much of this track is driven by Sesa on the drumstool, and he directs it very well. Guitar from Fischer screeches and rages almost in the background but forms a great backdrop for the two vocalists to perform against. There's supposedly a heavy influence on this album from the work of Aleister Crowley, and "Os abysmi vel daath" is the title of one of his books, another slow grinder with a snarly vocal and equally snarly guitars. Very Black Sabbath, this one. In the fourth minute there's a sound like the earth cracking and dark tortured voices issue forth as if from out of the mouth of Hades itself, Fischer's guitar adding to the cacaphony, then from nowhere the vocal punches back in. Effective, if a little knickers-shittingly-sudden! "Obscured" is one of the longer tracks, just hitting over the seven minute mark --- though by no means the longest --- and opens on feedback guitar and military drums before the bass kicks in from Ain and a laconic, lazy vocal which is joined by Simone Vollenweider as power chords from the guitar crash over the melody. Here the singing (the male vocal) reminds me more of Andrew Eldritch from Sisters of Mercy, very ominous and dark. There's very much a sense of gothic opera to this song; I'm almost surprised not to hear cello or some sort of orchestral instruments added in here. Great dark atmospherics here, and the double vocal works really well. A seriously grinding guitar then opens "Domain of decay", which then speeds up for about the first time on the album and sounds a little more thrash than doom, though it then kind of slows back down for the vocal, back up for the guitar riff, down for the vocal, and so on. By the midway point it's kind of settled in to a slow to mid-paced tempo with a serious solo right at the end. The tempo seems to be on the rise though, and "Ain Elohim" rocks along faster than anything Celtic Frost have done on this album so far. Hmm. Considering that "elohim" is a word for god, can it be said that Martin Ain has something of a divinity complex? This track isn't long about slowing down into the familiar grind though, and the angry, gutteral vocal that these guys utilise is just the right balance for me: tough and snarly but not so much that you can't understand the words being sung. If more "extreme metal" bands sang this way I think I might listen to them more. Oh well. I'm sure they're all just crying into their bank balances. The album then ends on a three-part, three-track epic called "Triptych". "Triptych I: Totengott" is darkly ominous with deep bass and growling guitar (you would expect keyboards but no) and a scary-sounding screeching voice more or less speaking the vocal, getting more agitated, evil and incomprehensible as it goes on, trailing off in a malevolent laugh as the music takes over. Slow, doomy drumming and scratchy, keening guitar carry the rest of the tune until the voice comes back in with another horrible screech, as if of a creature in pain, or one of pure evil. I wouldn't play this loud late at night I can tell you! As the voice and music fade out "Triptych II: Synagoga Satanae" (who needs that translated?) opens on a big feedback guitar, and is by far the longest not only of the parts, but of the tracks, clocking in at a massive fourteen and a half minutes. The first two minutes are basically a buildup on the guitar, which then kicks in properly and takes the melody in a slow, dark, doomy rhythm until vocals come in, dark and grindy but nothing as unintelligible as in "Triptych I". About halfway through there's a dark spoken vocal, almost whispered, which is apparently Satyr from Satyricon. I'd have to say fourteen minutes of this is a little hard to take, as there's no real changes in the melody, which is not to say it stays the same all the way but there are not that many sections, as it were, so it seems to just drag on. To me. I guess if this was to be their final album they wanted to go out with a bang, but this just seems stretched beyond the breaking point. The closer, and third and final part of the trilogy, "Triptych III: Winter (Requiem, Chapter III: Finale") is an instrumental, sounding like it's on violin but I don't see any credited so will assume it's just guitar. Hardly any percussion and a rising, very dramatic and almost classical keening guitar which sounds just like a synth --- maybe it is, and not credited? --- and provides a really classy end to the album. TRACKLISTING 1. Progeny 2. Ground 3. A dying god coming into human flesh 4. Drown in ashes 5. Os abysmi vel daath 6. Obscured 7. Domain of decay 8. Ain elohim 9. Triptych I: Totengott 10. Triptych II: Synagoga Satanae 11. Triptych III: Winter (Chapter three: Finale) Definitely at the more epic, gothic end of the spectrum, at least as far as this album is concerned, this is music I could listen to but not necessarily an album I would choose to experience. The musicianship is first rate and the vocals are generally very capable, and there is additionally a sort of sense of dark gothic fantasy running through "Monotheist", parts of which could work very well as a movie or even videogame soundtrack. No doubt this is not how they always sounded and if I were to dig into previous albums I'd find a totally different band, but as a swansong this album is pretty damn cohesive and I suppose having had basically fourteen years to plan and write it it was going to have to. If the fans were upset about the guys selling out with "Cold lake", then they should be reassured that the glam metal tag that offended them on that album has been well and truly laid to rest on this, and if you need a headstone to mark the grave of Celtic Frost, you would go far to do better than this. Read more here Celtic Frost - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018 Last edited by Trollheart; 04-15-2015 at 01:12 PM.