Review: 'Monotheist' by Celtic Frost
Monotheist
is almost the perfect extreme metal album. It’s an incredible achievement: the near-flawless synthesis of Celtic Frost’s traditional linear and Spartan sound, raw but focussed brutality, amazing production, and real innovation – in terms of what a metal album can and should constitute. Each track is unequivocally Celtic Frost – thanks to Tom G Fischer’s iron-clad riffs and Teutonic vocal barks – but sounds pretty much unlike anything you’ve heard before. ‘Progeny’ comes on like a brawl between Nitzer Ebb and Darkthrone. ‘Ground’ and ‘Os Abysmi vel Daath’ are both underpinned by the rhythms of their respective vocal refrains ‘O God, why have you forsaken me?’ and ‘I deny my own desire. Lying one among the liars’. ‘Drown in Ashes’ is reminiscent of Gary Numan in its use of electronic atmospherics and female vocals. ‘Temple of Depression’ is the best track NIN never wrote. ‘Obscured’ would be Fields of the Nephilim’s greatest anthem if they’d had the genius to write it. Totengott is quite frankly terrifying – it wouldn’t be out of place on Sunn O)))’s ‘Black One’. The album concludes with a heart-rending arrangement for strings called ‘Winter’. A fitting and restrained end to what is an exhausting listening experience – and therein lies my only criticism: Monotheist is maybe a tad too long. But there’s no excess or fat here – just an overabundance of ideas. The artwork is amazing too. Best track: all of them.
10/10
Posted by monoman at 10:58 PM on June 08, 2006
