Saturday, August 28, 2010

Celtic Frost: Monotheist (2006) Review

As I mentioned earlier, I had never heard Celtic Frost when I reviewed Triptykon's debut. That album was so incredible, I picked up two Celtic Frost albums soon after: To Mega Therion and Monotheist.

Many people said that Eparistera Daimones was very much like Monotheist, and I agree. All of the elements are essentially the same: ultra-heavy death/doom with dissonant chords, lots of string-bending, ethereal female vocals, and Tom G. Warrior's powerful snarl. The sound is absolutely frightening and awe-inspiring, a darkness made only bleaker by moments of fragile beauty.

The simplest way I can put it is that Eparistera Daimones is the perfected version of Monotheist. This album doesn't flow quite as well, and even though it's actually 4 minutes shorter it seems to drag on a little longer than it should. Triptykon's album has neither of those problems, being perfect in every way.



The Verdict: If you liked Eparistera Daimones, well, I'm not kidding anyone here, you probably already have Monotheist. But if you don't (I didn't) then you should definitely check out Celtic Frost's swan song. It's an imperfect version, but not so much that it will disappoint by any means. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

1 comment:

  1. That's a fantastic album. It's so different from everything else that Celtic Frost has done though. Their earlier material is much more straightforward, other than the totally bizarre Into the Pandemonium, which I don't care much for. I do agree though that Triptykon is a little better.

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