Year Of Metal #092: Celtic Frost - Monotheist
To my surprise, this is the second Swiss outfit I’ve covered for this project, though Celtic Frost seem to have had a lot more impact on the wider world of metal. Loads of acts, particularly the black metal lot, have cited them as formative influences. The works mentioned tend to come from their earlier days, when I glean they were a more aggressive act than we find them here, on their 2006 swansong. Though it doesn’t sound anything like it, I found myself drawing parallels to Unwound’s Leaves Turn Inside You - two sprawling final projects from bands going out on their own terms and saying everything they had left to say before hanging it up.
Monotheist is exhausting in a good way. It’s a long album full primarily of long, slow, ominous music. Evidently it’s an album borne out of necessity (potentially both artistic and financial varieties) - Celtic Frost hadn’t released an LP in 16 years before returning with this one, then calling it a day. They pack everything into the 68 minute runtime. Accordingly it’s difficult to categorise, but if I had to settle on a subgenre I’d go for gothic. This album sounds like old money. It’s opulent and spacious, built for dimly lit grand halls and epic montages of Carpathian mountaintops. It feels unmoored in time, as though the members had spent their decade and a half of downtime in suspended animation - or coffins - before waking up to record a metal opus without concern to what’s selling these days.
They convey the massiveness right away on stomping opener “Progeny”. We’re greeted with wailing feedback and heavily struck strings, pounding drums, the guttural grunts of Thomas Fischer. Celtic Frost sound practically industrial here, melody kept to a minimum so they can thrash it out without interruption. "A Dying God Coming into Human Flesh" is the first proper banger. They’re in no rush here, dragging out a soft spoken, sinister intro before the bendy, downtuned riff strikes suddenly, like lightning. The track finds its final fearsome form as the vocals kick into double time, the title becoming a chant of intent.
Not every song has to lay it on so thick. “Drown In Ashes” is one of my favourites, a spooky track that derives its primary melody from floating waves of feedback that haunt the track. Guest singer Lisa Middelhauve is the star of the show here, her lilting voice an effective counterpoint to Fischer’s rather tuneless presence. The gruff bloke/tuneful woman combo is an easy shortcut to metal success, but if the technique works, why bother messing with it?
“Obscured” is another highlight, boasting probably the best chorus on the whole record. This is Celtic Frost at their most indulgent and rich. What sounds like timpanis thud away in the background, walls of guitars pile up with enough heft to make Kevin Shields blush. They bring in another ringer, this time in the form of Simone Vollenweider, to add a chirping counterpoint on the mic. Structurally it’s a belter, the more is more approach adding ever more elements, the song becoming thicker and more satisfying at every turn.
You do walk a fine line when you’re making such sincere and melodramatic music as Monotheist, and on the other side of the line is lamesville. To their credit, for me they only visit there once, on “Ain Elohim”. With the second language caveat you have to grant non-English language bands, they get a bit carried away with the fantastical lyrics - “I am the one you dread / You are as good as dead,” for example - and Fischer growls them too clearly to get away with. That combined with a less than compelling riff and a lengthy run time with little in the way of variety makes this tune a misstep.
But any downfall isn’t for lack of trying or ambition, and they end the record - and their career to date - on a self described triptych of songs that run the gamut from properly gnarled horror to a string laden, melancholic close. Celtic Frost absolutely made the decision to burn out rather than fade away, and this is an inferno of a funeral pyre.
