Celtic Frost are one of the bands that changed extreme music, and «To Mega Therion» is their second album, released in October 1985 on Noise Records. It was recorded during September 1985 in Berlin, with Horst Müller and Tom G. Warrior producing. The title is Greek — «to mega therion», the great beast — a phrase the occultist Aleister Crowley also used, while the cover is a painting by the Swiss artist H. R. Giger.
“`Country: Switzerland
Style: Thrash, Black and Doom Metal
For fans of: Hellhammer, Bathory, Venom
The album sounds like nothing else of its time. The opener «Innocence and Wrath» is no ordinary intro: French horn, a heavy drum hit and an atmosphere close to Wagner, before the band drops into its rawest thrash. Warrior sings without ornament, the guitar has a dirty, threatening bulk, and the keyboards build a permanent sense of menace.
On «The Usurper» the riffs are sharp and fast, while «Circle of the Tyrants» is the landmark track that has stayed a classic to this day. «Dawn of Megiddo» and most of the second half move slower and heavier, and «Necromantical Screams» closes with operatic vocals and an experiment nobody expected in 1985.
Behind the sound is a trio that fits no mould: Tom G. Warrior on vocals and guitar, Dominic Steiner on bass and Reed St. Mark on drums, with help on French horn. That is why the album counts: it pushed thrash towards black and death metal before either genre even had a name, and a large part of the scene that followed owes something to it.
See also
Slayer Mark 40 Years of «Reign In Blood» With a Blood-Filled Zoetrope Vinyl and Bathory’s «Blood Fire Death»: the Album That Opened the Door to Viking Metal.
