Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Celtic Frost: Into The Pandemonium



Celtic Frost: Into The Pandemonium




            Only a small sliver of culture interests me intensely these days, and it is culture generally understood to be low-brow.  There are a number of horror films I like. There is the British crime writer Derek Raymond who was a criminal and I’m excited to soon be reading Joseph Wambaugh a crime writer who was a cop.  Then there is my whole fascination with metal, especially black metal.
 I’ll tell you an excellent early black metal type band, Celtic Frost baby. There’s of course Voivod, a brilliant band, War and Pain is the shit. There are some other early examples of metal of interest (Sacrilege, Bathory) from the same era of extreme interest.  And there are, of course, the bands that set churches on fire in Norway. 
            Into the Pandemonium by Celtic Frost is really the album. It was released by the Swiss metal band in 1987.  Celtic Frost took a lot of risks on Into The Pandemonium. I never quite got the cover of “Mexican Radio” that opens the album, but even that I’ve sort of gotten used to.  They also took large portions of the lyrics directly from Emily Bronte’s poetry, of all places, and used orchestral elements.  Then there is “One in Their Pride” which uses drum machine technology and samples sound clips of American astronauts landing on the moon.  I’ve seen Tom G. Warrior (bassist and vocalist) on YouTube explain that he sees what they did as not so much pioneering as simply honest in so far as if they liked some form of music, they would put it on the album.  Voivod tended to stay with their little science fiction shtick; the earliest Voivod is more or less a wall of noise fit as an expression.  It fits and makes perfect sense to me.  Celtic Frost is more of an enigma, especially on Into The Pandemonium. I am still marginally more intrigued by what Voivod accomplished at this time (the 80’s), but the two bands are often paired and it is more the same vision then an entirely different one.  It is true neither Voivod nor Celtic Frost members ever set a church on fire, as did some of the people in Norwegian bands starting at this time.  I think it works, I think what they did will take years to fully grasp.  As aggressive as what they did was, it was highly complex. Martin Ain is a fairly unreal guitarist. The technical component is vital. 
            All I have to say to the local week bands in the Williamsburg/Greenpoint area of Brooklyn where I have been staying of late, if you make an album on the level of early Voivod, early Celtic Frost or the better Scandinavian black metal bands, I will acknowledge you, but it doesn’t even seem that you even get that kind of music.  I went to college with a guy named Max McDonald, he’s also called himself Max Heel for some reason. His father was the bassist for the 70’s band Foreigner.  People used to call him mod max in college because of his shitty little sixties haircut and mod clothing.  Max McDonald did what a lot of people in my generation did in the 2000’s.  That was move to New York and start some shit band that sounded like Interpol or the Strokes. The thing is his band Lions and Tigers never went anywhere commercially, so Max McDonald has nothing to be smug about. That’s unfortunately the way a lot of rock and roll has gone in recent years, Williamsburg is still full of Max McDonald types. There’s a Mod Max on every corner of Williamsburg.  I can’t stand it that’s why I’m working on moving to Philadelphia.  Certainly such bands lack the technical expertise of early Celtic Frost or early Voivod, and are extremely limp-wristed by comparison. I will admit that I have seen many hipsters wearing Joy Division t-shirts.  I’ll give the hipsters Joy Division. I always liked them. I’ll also admit that Voivod and Celtic Frost have weaker work. Voivod’s Angel Rat and Celtic Frost’s Cold Lake are notoriously bad albums. They’re failed experiments is what they are. That there are hipsters savvy enough to like Joy Division or that Celtic Frost and Voivod had off albums means that much in the end. The Max McDonald types of the world are still completely worthless by contrast.  Extreme metal of course continues on its own as its own thing.  Children of Technology from Italy model themselves strongly after early Voivod and Celtic Frost. It is yet to be seen that they are able to build upon what Voivod and Celtic Frost achieved, but we shall see.  Children of Technology have some reason to exist. They’ve only been around three years they might well prove themselves.  I’m not that optimistic. I don’t think it really matters.  It seems to me like the old bands did just fine.  

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