CELTIC FROST — Monotheist (review)

CELTIC FROST — Monotheist album cover Album · 2006 · Doom Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Time Signature
Drown in metal...

Genre: doom metal / gothic metal

The Journey of Celtic Frost has been a long and rugged one, going through very different lands. The band started out, back in the Hellhammer days and also at the "Morbid Tales"/"Emperor's Return" era, playing a sort of primitive and sloppy thrash metal which was very much one of the earliest incarnations of black metal. Then, on "To Mega Therion" and "Into the Pandemonium", they developed a dark and dirty type of avant-garde metal, making use of elements from all over the musical palette before going in a more traditionalist heavy/glam metal direction on the much despised "Cold Lake" before entering into thrash metal territory with the midpaced still thrashy "Vanity/Nemesis". And now they have reached the end of their journey (they are not likely to release an album again unless Tom G. returns to the band) on a very dark and depressive note, as they venture into the territory of doom and gothic metal, producing perhaps the ugliest [in a positive sense] swansong ever.

The music on "Monotheist" is unmistakably Celtic Frost: the dirty guitar sound is instantly recognized and the sense of darkness that has "haunted" the band since their first releases is still there. Most of the tracks are dark and heavy and doom-ladden, and many, such as the "Triptych" suite, also include amusical dark soundscapes. Some of the more upbeat tracks (if "upbeat" is even applicable here) like "Progeny", are slightly groovy, making use of riffage that reminds me of Sepultura's "Roots Bloody Roots". While not as slow as a lot of modern doom metal, "Monotheist" is just as bleak and hope-crushing, and I've even read a review somewhere describing it as scary, which is actually a quite good description. I mean just check out "A Dying God Coming into Human Flesh" and the "Triptych" tracks, for instance, and hear how dark and gloomy they are.

While not funeral doom or sludge doom, "Monotheist" displays the same sort of bleakness, and I think it will appeal to fans of doom metal along with long time Celtic Frost fans.
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