«Into the Pandemonium» is Celtic Frost‘s third album and was released in 1987 on Noise Records. The band from Zurich were among the most influential of the European scene, and here they dared something completely different: they brought in symphonic elements, female vocals and even a track that recalls a hip-hop beat. The cover is a work by Hieronymus Bosch.
“`Country: Switzerland
Style: Avant-Garde Metal
For fans of: Venom, Bathory, Triptykon
The album is experimental and heavy at the same time. Beneath the strange passages lies the familiar, thick guitar sound of Celtic Frost, with plenty of riffs. Some tracks sound as if they belong to another genre, and that is exactly why the album is regarded as a landmark of avant-garde metal.
Standouts include «Inner Sanctum», full of changes and riffs, the epic «Rex Irae (Requiem)» that closes the record with symphonic elements, the idiosyncratic «One in Their Pride» and the cover of Wall of Voodoo’s «Mexican Radio». Alongside them there is also «I Won’t Dance (The Elder’s Orient)» with female vocals.
The result divided listeners: some saw it as a pioneering work that opened new roads, others as a confused set of experiments. Both sides are right, and it is exactly that contradiction that makes it a classic. Behind the strange passages there is a brave album, one that showed extreme metal could be powerful and unpredictable at the same time.
Tom G. Warrior put into the album all his love for classical music and for sounds that had no place on a metal record, without counting the risk. «Into the Pandemonium» marks the end of Celtic Frost’s most creative period and influenced many bands in the extreme field, from symphonic black metal to the most experimental acts. More on the Celtic Frost page.
See also
See also: Morbid Angel – Altars of Madness: The Debut That Redrew the Limits of Death Metal and Coroner – No More Color: Swiss Thrash That Learned to Think.
