CELTIC FROST — Into the Pandemonium (review)

CELTIC FROST — Into the Pandemonium album cover Album · 1987 · Avant-garde Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Time Signature
I won't dance (but I'll gladly bang my head)

Genre: avant-metal / thrash metal

One of the most influential, yet generally very underrated, avant-garde metal albums, "Into Pandemonium" is really something else. First off, it starts out with a cover track and contains a Motown-funk-meets-metal tracks in "I Won't Dance". Secondly, there is the proto-industrial metal track "One In Their Pride" which makes use of electronic drum beats and samples. Thirdly, there's the classical peace with spoken French language lyrics "Tristesses De La Lune". Fourthly, there are Tom Fischer's moaning vocals on the melancholic "Mesmerized", "Sorrows of the Moon" (given its name, there must be some conceptual connection between this track and "Tristesses De La Lune"), and "Caress Into Oblivion (Jade Serpent II)" and the use of percussion in the sections ("Caress Into Oblivion" eventually morphs into a more straight metal tune ... with some spacey effects though). Fifthly, there's the use of timpani, violin and female operatic vocals on the dark and doomy "Rex Irae (Reqiuem)" which also features Tom Fischer's more mournful vocals. "Oriental Masquerade" is stylistically similar, making use of a dark classical ensemble. There are also the more all out metal tracks like "Inner Sanctum", "Babylon Fell (Jade Serpent)" and "In the Chapel, In the Moonlight", "The Inevitable Factor" (which does feature some spacey effects, though).

This album is not for everyone. It took me a loooong time to be able to appreciate it, because its dark avant-garde nature was something I simply wasn't prepared for back then. But once, it gets under one's skin, it becomes obvious that "Into the Pandemonium" is an early avant-garde metal masterpiece.
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